Escape Velocity, by Jason M. Hough

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Captains Skyler Luiken and Gloria Tsandi (and their respective crews) have smashed through the deadly Swarm Blockade, but now find themselves scattered around the planet Carthage and the space stations that she holds in her orbit. Their mission is now twofold: destroy the military compounds of the nefarious alien overlords and find a way back home to Earth.
Standing in their way are a race of horrifying aliens aided by incredible weapons and technology. Low on supplies and with intermittent communication, the surviving humans must rely on all of their cunning, strength, and plain old good luck to turn the tables and overcome their foes. 

The only expectation I had for Escape Velocity was that it was the conclusion to the Dire Earth Duology, and that it had a badass captain on the cover. If you read my review on Tuesday, you already know that I seriously liked Zero World, so I had high expectations for the Dire Earth Duology.

I think that book two is the better of the two books. The floundering that I had felt in book one was gone, replaced by familiarity. Some of the clunky surreal sequences I was left scratching my head in the first book reached fruition in book two.

The dangling plot from Injection Burn is wrapped up in Escape Velocity, and if Jason Hough decided to write more in the same universe, I’d be an eager reader. I’m probably going to read the Dire Earth Cycle, and I look forward to meeting Jason at the 2017 Phoenix Comicon this weekend. I’m giving Escape Velocity four and a half stars over Injection Burn’s four.

Jason M. Hough (pronounced ‘Huff’) is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dire Earth Cycle and the near-future spy thriller Zero World. In a former life he was a 3D artist, animator, and game designer (Metal Fatigue, Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, and many others). He has also worked in the fields of high-performance cluster computing and machine learning.

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