Richard Phillips

The Kasari Nexus (Rho Agenda Assimilation)

Matthew Royal

Supposedly the first book in the series, but it's constantly flashing back to the interesting things that happened before this story started -- there is way too much exposition in this book. It's distracting and the narrator feels like that friend who recaps the last season of the show you watch together 15 minutes before season 2. All the adjectives and descriptions are cliched. The men grunt and ooze masculinity; the women are sexy as hell.

Every character is on an upward trend. There are no opponents that present real threats. There are no obstacles that the characters cannot overcome. The protagonists have the best technology and their enemies can't figure out what's happening. Every good guy is special in some way. Even minor throwaway good guys are cycling champions and natural geniuses. Throwaway bad guys wish they had followed through on their New Years' fitness resolutions. 

I call this genre Domination Fantasy -- it's written as if its target audience are slightly dense, white collar middle managers who fantasize about ruling the world with unopposed benevolently absolute power -- next to their compliant, hot wives -- and anyone who doesn't like them is a fat bad guy.

The Kasari Nexus (Rho Agenda Assimilation)

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