Book #3 in the Invasion series.
This third book in the series picks up where its forerunners left off, chronicling the future invasion of American soil by Chinese forces. China’s allies like Germany—and to a lesser degree, Brazil—show their colors a bit more boldly in this installment, and we get a sense of the United States’ dwindling hope.
While the overall story and individual battles are all starting to run together—though locales and ranks change, the heroes and conversations don’t change nearly as often—there were a number of things that set Colorado apart from both Invasion: Alaska and Invasion: California. First, the political intrigue that comes with Germany’s attempts to keep its nose out of U.S. business, while also trying to gain a stronger foothold in Canada, felt like a dramatic play in Risk the board game. Negotiations, favors, lies, and countermoves—it gave me a sense of the politics of war that normally gets lost in the history books. I enjoyed Germany’s attempts at cheating the invaded, and America’s attempts at deceiving them right back.
Second, the sub-plot of China’s newest Police Minister and her rise to power was an enjoyable respite from the fray. The humanization of a novel’s antagonists always helps to adds deeper hues to an author’s work, and Vaughn Heppner does all right in this regard. The polar bear cub is weird, but not so outlandish to make the whole affair ridiculous. This is the new China, and apparently insanely wealthy people in the New China love their at-home zoos. Not beyond belief, honestly, at least for those of us who know insanely wealthy people in the current China.
I also enjoyed the effectiveness of both the Behemoth Tanks on the American side and the jet packs of the Chinese side. Overall, however, my favorite scene was the “accidental assassination” of a Chinese general by the blood-brothers hiding in a jeep. The repercussions from that coincidental event were massive in the minds of Chinese strategists, though the Americans weren’t even aware of what they’d done! That was an unexpected turn that gave life to the story. Such mistakes and coincidences offer a realism to Heppner’s fiction much more than I would have thought.
One oddity in the book threw me, now as I look back. While early on in the fourth book, Invasion: New York, Heppner’s characters talk as though the Colorado Campaign were an American success, I never felt it while reading this. Instead, this book seemed marked by hopelessness, despite the small successes enjoyed along the way. After all, we all know that winning battles doesn’t mean winning wars, right?
©2018 E.T.
Read More from Vaughn Heppner:
- Invasion: Alaska (2011)
- Invasion: California (2012)
- Invasion: Colorado (2013)
- Invasion: New York (2013)
- Invasion: China (2014)