Nicholas Sansbury Smith

The fight for Earth has been lost. With the failure of Operation Redemption in the last book the human race now finds itself on the brink of extinction. The few humans still alive on Earth can barely recognize their own planet. All the freshwater gone and the oceans down to 21% of their former volume, and still the aliens continue to drain away the remaining water. Earth is now a barren planet and this is the world that the former crew of the grounded submarine, Ghost of Atlantis, is trying to survive in. Of course, things are not much better for their former commander, Captain Noble, who finds himself caged in some kind of alien zoo spaceship and headed to an unknown destination. Perhaps humanity's best hope of survival is Dr Winston's team who are on their way to Mars aboard the NTC Sunspot in a desperate attempt to find a new home - too bad for them the aliens are already there too.

What made this series unique at the start was the concept of trying to survive an apocalypse by living in the sky aboard airships. Once the focus moved down to the planet for the last two books there were times when the series felt like it had gone on a bit too long. The same storm related issues continue to arise over and over and the fights with the sirens have gotten old, but each time the story starts to drag a bit it is the characters that save the day. After a slow start to this one I was once again heavily invested in the outcome before it was over due to the characters and my desire to see them succeed. King Xavier has more enemies to fight than ever before, and that is saying something, and that means that humanity's future is as bleak as it has ever been. Certain Cazadores still resist his rule and cause internal strife while even larger external threats are organizing to come and take the Vanguard Islands for themselves. Once more we get a chance to find out if X, aka The Immortal, can live up to his nickname, or if time has finally run out for the dream of living on the surface.

All the freshwater on Earth is gone. Now the alien invaders are working on the oceans and they are down to about half their volume. If humanity is going to fight back, then the time is now. In the last book, the Cheyenne Mountain biosphere team proved that their new weapon was capable of disabling the alien shields so they shared that technology with the Ghosts of Atlantis, the last remaining military submarine. Now they have discovered a potential new alien vulnerability which could allow an attack to disable all of the aliens planetwide. They shared this knowledge with the GoA as well and Captain Noble has decided it is worth the risk to launch such an attack. While his team works on a longer range version of the weapon to make this possible Noble notices that biosphere goes dark. He must now decide between his attack plan and investigating what happened to the scientists who made it all possible - the scientists he promised to protect.

Dr. Sophie Winston and her small band of survivors now understand how dire their circumstances are, but unfortunately they are not aligned on how best to move forward. The aliens have already removed all of the fresh water from the planet and now they are working on the oceans where they are sucking the water into the toward their orbiting ships. Back on land the aliens have set up a number of  "human farms" where they mount people onto poles and slowly drain the water from their bodies. The human farm that has been discovered in Colorado Springs has Sgt Overton adamant about mounting a rescue mission to save as many people as possible but Sophie believes that such a mission would put them all at risk and she refuses to authorize it. The strain of this disagreement has them both at their breaking points.

In the year 2055 an unprecedented series of solar storms results in a coronal mass ejection (CME) that bombards the Earth with radiation and renders many locations uninhabitable. This cataclysm motivates the governments of the world to start collaborating on a joint project to start to populate another world - Mars. New Tech Corporation (NTC) becomes responsible for getting humans to the red planet and they are hiring the best scientists in the world to make it happen. Their sense of urgency in this endeavor is off the charts and that is because they know something that most people on Earth don't - the CME of 2055 was not a random event.

Now that the battle for the metal islands is over, the aftermath of that battle becomes the new focus. The former residents of the Hive now find themselves living on the surface and the ancient prophecy fulfilled isn't the dream life that was expected. X quickly discovers that uniting the Sky People and the Cazadores into a single community is much harder than just letting them kill each other. Neither side truly respects the other and just because X is weary of killing it doesn't mean everyone else is. X's attempt to form a new combined society in the metal islands could lead to a brighter future, but it is far more likely to just result in the extinction of the human race...

Book 5 picks up immediately after the ending of Book 4, which is a good thing because that cliff hanger ending left fans of the series eager for more. What threat could possibly be worse then the mutated creatures that rule the Earth's radioactive surface? Of course, it is the humans that somehow managed to survive hidden in the ocean on the Metal Islands. The Cazadores are far more numerous and brutal than the inhabitants of The Hive could ever have imagined, and they won't be easily defeated. With key personnel now being held captive on the Metal Islands, the dream of returning to the surface of the Earth has officially turned into a nightmare. Is returning to the Earth's surface really a viable future for the residents of The Hive or will it lead them to their ultimate doom?

The events of The Storm set this series up for a big finish and this book does not disappoint. The citizens of Estes Park are fighting for their lives and even if they manage to survive things will never go back to the way they were. The same is true for the entire world as Chinese troops are on US soil and Chinese fighter jets are flying overhead. While some welcome the foreign "aid" being offered others view it as a threat and mobilize to push back these unwanted invaders. It all adds up to put the country on the brink of collapsing as war is everywhere and the main characters can no longer prevent it from happening. Now the question is, can they survive it? 

A month has now gone by since the EMP attack and life as we knew it in the United States is a thing of the past. Nicholas Sansbury Smith continues to tell a story about relationships and what people will do for those they care about even as the world around them crumbles. This time it is Albert Randall, Secretary Montgomery's bodyguard, who heads out into a lawless world to find his missing sister. This journey exposes us to one of the FEMA survival centers that has been set up and it shows how the remaining government forces are ill equipped to hold back the gangs and domestic terrorists that are rising in power. These same threats are being faced by Estes Park as Chief Colton and Raven do their best to survive and find a way to protect their small town.

While the country crumbles around her, newly promoted Secretary of Defense Charlize Montgomery plans to risk her own life in an attempt to save her disabled son Ty; however, before she can figure how she is going to get the job done the new President sends a team of marines to get the job done. Unfortunately those marines are not prepared for the rise of the "Sons of Liberty" who have formed their own army and have taken control of the area in Colorado where Ty was last seen. Meanwhile in nearby Estes Park, the inhabitants are still struggling to find their way forward and deal with life in the aftermath of an EMP attack. Winter is approaching and tempers flare about how best to handle enforcing the law and feeding everyone with an impending food shortage on the horizon.