Book #4 in the Invasion series.

Unexpectedly, in this fourth book of Vaugh Heppner‘s Invasion series, the invading Chinese forces are taking a well-deserved break! In my review of Invasion: Colorado, I had wondered how the Americans could consider the Colorado campaign a success, if they’re now on the verge of losing New York as well. As I consider it now, however, success must have come in watching the Chinese guns settle and cool. The invasion of New York, on the other hand, comes from a separate invader entirely.

The Germans had finagled their way in America’s temporary good graces in Colorado by promising never to invade from Cuba, if the U.S. would only allow them to dig roots into Canada. The U.S. played this game deceitfully, yet in the end, Germany still won the upper hand by effectively surrounding the U.S. from North, East and West, all the while trusting the sleeping Chinese to handle the Western Front.  By the beginning of this book, the American forces were exhausted and depleted, her survivors crammed into an area half the size of the Continental U.S. we all know and love today. The U.S. certainly looked doomed, especially when peering into the tired eyes of the Commander in Chief.

My favorite aspects of this book were the Penal Battalion scenes, the use of the Thor Missiles, and the Vance Holbrook snippets. If our future really holds these Penal Battalions, I don’t want to be around for it! They are probably the worst aspect of this entire series thus far, yet they’re fascinating in the possibilities they offer. Jake is arrested for urinating on the image of the Director of Homeland Security—a man who’s stripped American citizenry of their basic Constitutional freedoms—and is sent to serve till death on the front lines as a prisoner-soldier. The commanders in this Battalion are narcissists who would much rather maim and murder the prisoners under their charge than train them for battle, and Jake witnesses it all. Their violence and cowardice are despicable and remind me of the prison guards in just about any prison drama on TV.

The Thor Missiles which make an entrance late in the book are straight-up awesome! Hunks of steel hurled from space, untraceable by any modern monitoring device and murderous to tanks upon impact—amazing! That the tired President would finally choose to use them was a stroke of military genius and truly the end to the German campaign.

The Tank Wars snippets from the fictional war author Vance Holbrook were a great method of providing the reader with details about the war from a future correspondent, without boring the reader with unnecessary details. Heppner’s alter-ego is a great and precise writer, and I think I will enjoy reading his works come 2050.

There were two portions of the story that I really didn’t like, the self-aware machines and the assassination plot. First, the subplot of machines becoming self-aware seemed utterly useless in the end. I get that Heppner wants to show the advancements of technology in this futuristic war, but the fact that the self-aware machines never got anywhere just made this reader feel like he wasted his time with those scenes. Second, the Algonquin plot to assassinate the German Chancellor could have been written in a much more thrilling way, filled with bits of intrigue and suspense. As it was, however, the whole thing seemed too matter-of-fact and was a bit of a disappointment.

I’m four books through the five-book series, and I really look forward to Invasion: China! I think there’s a lot of pent-up emotion and anger against the Chinese (in the story, of course) for their having invaded our home territory, and now that the minimal-personnel Germans have been quieted, the Americans are ready to garner their survivors into one final “get you butts off my land!” push into China. My sole guess for what awaits me in Book Five is that Stan, at some point, becomes President. I think he’s been set up for that since the very first book. We’ll see.

©2018 E.T.

Read More from Vaughn Heppner:

• Invasion: Alaska (2011)
• Invasion: California (2012)
• Invasion: Colorado (2013)
• Invasion: New York (2013)
• Invasion: China (2014)