Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsPossible spoilers
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 15, 2019
I really, really like the Starfire series, especially In Death Ground and Shiva Option. Exodus and Extremis were ok, still decent books.
Imperative unfortunately is simply silly. Spoilers ahead...
One of the main plot points is kinetic kills against numerous systems from generational ships from one source. The ships are allegedly moving at .6c to .8c. Ok, so far I can buy that. They align the ships and destroy them creating clouds of debris that continue at the same relatavistic speeds towards inhabited systems. Still ok so far although starting to get sketchy. The objects destroy planets and installations throughout the PSU. Ok, now we are into LotR fantasy and a complete disregard for basic physics.
The stars in the PSU, as stated many times, are hundreds of light years apart. The kinetic bombardment would have taken hundreds, if not thousands, of years to take place. Sublight objects starting from relatively close together, required by the storyline of fleets fleeing a supernova, would have a gap of 7 or 8 years just between Sol and Centauri, and they are close together. In the PSU three light years was considered incredibly close in an earlier story. The main characters would have been dead of old age generations before the bombardments destroyed the listed planets and locations. I don't mind suspending disbelief under certain circumstances but not when they are trying something like kinetic weapons.
The authors completely lost me at that point. I'm not even going to bother getting into the idea that an object weighing a few tons moving at .6c could destabilize a main sequence star while managing to pass entirely through it.
I wanted to like the book, and I'll read the next one, but I am very disappointed by the complete disregard for science in this one.
