invasion

Invasion
(2011)
Mercedes Lackey, with Steve Libbey, Cody Martin, and Dennis Lee

Let me start with the mass chaos that is the inception of this series. First, to my understanding, the original concept for the Secret World Chronicles series came from a comic, then a  Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) City of Heroes, then came a podcast, THEN the book series. I may not have the order correct. Please don’t crucify me if you’re a fan of one of its previous incarnations and I am incorrect. I came into this late. Book series late. I have absolutely no experience with any of the previous forms.

That said, I really enjoyed Invasion. Giant Nazi robots! Superheroes and super villians with crazy powers and meta armor! Nikolai Tesla! This book launches a crazy alternate history of WWII and after that is a wild romp from start to finish.

I was a little concerned initially about the number of contributors and switching between characters and contributors/teams of contributors. I can’t say that it was always smooth, but the primary story arc held throughout. There are a LOT of characters to keep up with, and I think the authors did a good job of keeping everything coherent. I can’t recall any major confusion, and the important characters (and even many of the secondary ones) were developed enough for me to feel invested in them and care about what was happening in their individual story arcs.

I found the end of the first book rather abrupt, but I am definitely interested to see what happens next. Don’t be put off just because you don’t know anything about the previous iterations of The Secret World Chronicles – you don’t have to be familiar with them to enjoy the books on their own. I’m also interested to see what the authors have done individually. My To Read list may grow exponentially….