Daisy's War - Scott Baron

   2018; 366 pages.  Book 5 (out of 5) in the series “The Clockwork Chimera”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Space Opera; Alien Invasion Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    The first phase of the Great War is complete: Planet Earth has been liberated!  Now it’s time for phase two, the liberation of the Chithiid home planet Taangaar.

 

    The battle lines are drawn.  On one side are the Humans, the Cyborgs, and several AI’s operating spaceships.  Plus some Chithiid “rebels”, freed from their forced slavery when Earth was retaken, and ready to mete out some revenge.

 

    On the other side are the countless hordes of the Ra’az Hok bad guys plus a whole bunch of Chithiid “loyalists”, whose families are being held hostage by the Ra’az Hok.  Past experience has shown that the baddies will not hesitate to slaughter any and all captives for the slightest reasons.

 

    Both sides have some hidden resources up their sleeves.  Interestingly, some hidden assets of the good guys are even being kept secret from the rest of the good guys.  I wonder how that’s going to play out.

 

What’s To Like...

    Daisy’s War is the fifth, and final book in Scott Baron’s “Clockwork Chimera” series, wherein he faced a daunting task: to bring together a bunch of characters scattered throughout the galaxy (including the mysterious wunderkind Arlo), consolidate the forces of Good and then purge the baddies from two armed-to-the-teeth and hostile planets (if the Ra’az home planet can even be located), resolve the Sarah/Sarah dichotomy (say what?), and finally, give Daisy a much-needed rest.  Oh yeah, and accomplish this in less than 400 pages.

 

    Missions accomplished.

 

    It wasn’t easy.  It takes time for the armies and spaceships of the good guys to gather together into one cohesive fleet.  Warp drives can be persnickety and fragile.  AI’s may be super-intelligent but sometimes they're a bit lacking in common sense.  And while the Ra’az Hok may be slightly (but only slightly) behind technology-wise, they make up for that by having a decided numerical advantage in spaceships and fighting personnel.

 

    It was fun to see the Daisy/Sarah arrangement (cue the Pink Floyd lyrics “there’s someone in my head, but it’s not me”) finally be revealed to other interested parties.  Ditto for the Sarah/Finn relationship.  Several deceased characters for earlier books are surprisingly resuscitated, thanks to the AI smarts.  One of them plays a vital role in determining who wins and who loses.

 

    I enjoyed the tie-ins to at least three movies: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Terminator, and Back to the Future.  I have no doubt that Scott Baron's cinematic tastes are stellar.  The Fibonacci Spiral getting worked into the story was also a nice touch.  I’ll even look the other way about the one Hydrogen and two Oxygen molecules getting together to form water.  The ratio is the other way around, and they’re atoms, not molecules.

 

    Everything builds to a suitably exciting climax, where the tides of war swing from one side to the other a couple times before finally settling out.  The final chapter is in a “whatever happened to…” format, and I thought it was a fine way to end this saga.  The war is over, Earth begins to slowly rebuild itself, and some of the series' characters retire to start families.  Things close with a couple of heartwarming plot twists.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 446 ratings and 45 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.43/5 based on 369 ratings and 39 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Janky (adj.) : of poor quality; unreliable.

 

Excerpts...

    “You were dead, man.” Omar replied.

    “I know.  Bummer, right?”

    “So now you’re a computer?”

    “Technically, a one-of-a-kind AI, if you want to get nitpicky about it,” he replied.  “But there’s something I need to ask you all, and I need you to be upfront.”

    “Of course,” Sarah said.  “What is it, Gus?”

    Their AI friend paused for a moment for effect.

    “Be honest.  Does this ship make me look fat?”  (loc. 23121)

 

    “So how did you do it?”

    “Here’s the thing, Captain.  Sometimes, well, things just aren’t quite what they seem.  And other times, they’re exactly what they seem, but even then they might not be.”

    “I’m not following you,” he said, confused.

    By the expressions on everyone present’s faces, he wasn’t alone in that regard.

    “Okay, I’ll break it down as basically as I can, but forgive me if I slip into a tangent here and there.  It’s been a long day, and I’m wicked sleep-deprived.”

    “Aren’t we all?” Celeste said with a little laugh.  (loc. 24304)

 

Kindle Details…

    Daisy’s War is priced at $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other four books in the series are all in the $0.99-$3.99 range, and there is a 5-book bundle, comprising the entire series, for only $7.99, which is the format I’m reading.

 

“Basically, you downloaded yourself to yourself just before you blew yourself up.”  (loc. 20003)

    The profanity rate continues its steady decline for the series, which is a plus.  I counted just 11 cusswords in the first four chapters (ergo, 10% of the 40 chapters) of the book.  Previous cuss rates for the first 10% were 15 (Book 4), 20 (Book 3), 15½ (Book 2, extrapolated), and 27 (Book 1).

    There were a couple typos, such as clean-off/clean off; they/the; and queens/queen’s, but they weren’t a distraction.

 

    My gripes were the usual for this series.  Clockwork Chimera is first and foremost a Space Opera series.  Yet too many pages are devoted to making plans and discussing relationships, particularly in the first parts of each installment.  Here, the first eleven chapters dragged for me.

 

    To be fair, once the plans are set and the attacks get underway, there’s action aplenty.  Alas, dei ex machina (the plural of deus ex machina.  I had to look that up.) arise all too frequently.  One unexpected miracle is okay.  Maybe even two.  Here there were six.  That’s way too many.

 

    But these are personal opinions only.  If you happen to like your Sci-Fi Adventure-Intrigue stories heavy on the Intrigue, you’re going to love this series.  Ditto if your heroes get rescued time and time again by incredibly-timed luck.

    So just put your thinking brain to sleep and enjoy a story about Daisy and her friends saving Planet Earth, Planet Taangaar, and the rest of the Universe to boot.  You'll still be entertained.  I was.

 

    7½ Stars.  Scott Baron has penned at least four other Sci-fi Space Opera series, and this is the first one I’ve read to completion.  Up next is the Deep Space Boogie series, which I started reading a couple years back, by getting drawn in by Daisy’s adventures.