World Famous Comics: Fall with Honor (Vampire Earth, Book 7)
Fall with Honor (Vampire Earth, Book 7)
By: E.E. Knight Publisher: Roc Hardcover Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Roc Hardcover Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 336 Publication Date: July 01, 2008
Product Description: Freedom is on the march as the rebellion against the Kurian Occupation of Earth takes the offensive. David Valentine has recruited an ad hoc company of former Quisling soldiers and puts them through a trial by fire with a successful raid against an enemy armory. Now, they’re ready to join forces with a guerilla army planning to establish a new freehold in the Appalachian Mountains.
Valentine knows that a permanent outpost near the East Coast would provide a strategic victory over the Kurians—and he believes that only his old ally Ahn-Kha could be leading the guerillas. But nothing could prepare Valentine’s fighters for what awaits them at the end of their journey.
Losing vitality and energy It's sad to me when the best part of a book is when old characters that you knew put in a cameo appearance. Fall with Honor was a let down to me because Val seems to just going through the motions. There is an interesting mission and there could be interesting characters, but the writing feels like Knight has gotten bored with writing about this subject and doesn't really give it his best.
Book 7 and Val is taking part in an effort to start another area of human control in a Kurian zone. He's worn down, tired, broken to a greater or lesser degree, but for some reason none of that really matters because he is still Val. The folks who surround him seem to be just different iterations of many similar characters that we fought, served with and hated before. It's frustrating because there is so much more to be told about this series.
What really bothers me is that with a little more work and design there is a lot of very interesting things that could be happening. The potential is really great in that Knight has left enough loose ends out there for some great stuff to come of it. I just wish that he would get as deeply involved as it felt like he was in the past.
E. E. Knight is Excellent as Always Fall with Honor As always, I am so impressed with the research required to do the Vampire Earth books. The geography is outstanding for places that usually only locals would know. The story lines are riveting and so believable. You feel like you know the main characters from his very first book.
I understand why some might be confussed This is still a perfectly enjoyable book and I had fun although I will admit certain cracks are starting to show.
The characterization is fine and David Valentine has not changed a bit he still kicks butt and he is still fighting a desperate battle against insurmountable odds these are the good parts. I also like that he actually acquires scares over the course of his long struggle to many times these types of main characters never get a scratch; it just goes to show you that war is hell.
The parts that dragged for me and took the punch out of what was an otherwise great book are
1. the interaction between Valentine and the White Fangs this ability that Valentine has to be a master negotiator all the time in all situations is wearing a little thin for me.
2. Also the interaction between Valentine and the half grog son he adopted named Blake once was fine but twice is frustrating. I bought to read about Valentine the killer of Kur vampire lords not to hear another installment in the life of Valentine the affectionate father figure. If Knight is setting this up so that in a few books Blake's blood will be the start of some kind of biological weapon like in "V" I'm going to stop reading the series now. 3. The characters that screwed Valentine over two installments ago get by with barely a slap on the wrist. The characters that I have come to know and love make either a very brief appearance or no appearance at all.
I love the Vampire Earth series and I liked the point of this installment when it finally arrived but I was missing some old friends. I have to have faith that Knight will tighten things up and everything will be back to normal.
Scraping by.... I was soooo looking forward to the first entire book that Valentine was a Bear. He went red once. As in Tale of the Thunderbolt... once again it appears that Valentine has lost all of his hunter traits.
We were at a time where it seemed that Valentine would exceed any expectations of strength, speed and endurance than any other hunter bar none. This book portrays him as a broken down mid level field grade officer. I remember one part where he said that you only recover 90 percent of what you had before and he wondered how many 90%'s he had.
Come on. The stage is set up and you have to continually wait for any type of action, all this book is a bunch of self doubts and filler. Very predictable with predicatable twists.
What this series needs is exactly what most other longer series needs, the stage is set so lets get to some character development and see some action.
Even though we have now finally seen Bears in action, we have never had good descriptions of what happens and goes on in the Bears minds. That would be great to read.
The worst in the series This was by far the worst book in this series. Don't get me wrong, I love David Valentine, but the character is aging. What happened to the young David Valentine? Anyways, the story was really weak. Without spoiling it, the climax was horribly lame. You'll read this and be like... "Dude just roll in there and kill people!" But unfortunately he won't. If you've read all the books up to this, then you're going to read this book, as did I, but you'll find this doesn't meet up to the standards of the other books. At least I didn't. Now I need to read Jhegaala (if you haven't read that series, check it out).
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