The story is a military one, set in space, in the future. The author is clearly a marine-ophile since every second or third paragraph contains a snippet of marine history or a description of how wonderful marines are. Of course, the author didn't refer to them as the U.S. Marines because in this future the US is (theoretically) just part of a planetary federation; in reality, however, the whole Federation is American in nature.

Of course, this doesn't make the story bad at all... as long as you're aware that it has a North American perspective on everything, is very military, and has a very Marines-are-King attitude. That and the author likes to give the make, model and serial number (and color too, sometimes) of every technical item from the armor to the alien's hibernation chambers.

The aliens are cool, the details are great, the story is engaging. And, although this is book one in a series, the story stands completely alone and is satisfactorily wrapped up in the end. ( )