As the others in the series, not exactly brilliant, but enjoyable. ( )

The final installment of the First Salik War.

Fascinating and engaging, even if some of the technical details were over my head. As a non-military, non-political person the details are both fascinating but it may bog down some readers. In saying that I still loved all the detail and maneuvering required but it was a LOT of detail. It created an amazing sense of immersion even if I sometimes wanted the author to get on with the story.

Great read, with Jackie and Li'eth trying to manage discrimination, different races, political intrigue and find a way to end the war with the Salik's. Never dull, although sometimes Jackie seems to good to be true.

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The Blockade (First Salik War, #3) was merely ok when it could have been good. The book has a female heroine, psychic abilities, and flesh eating aliens. Johnson uses this book to ask some good questions. The principle one being how do 2 cultures react when one views the other as children? The other question being are there rules in a war where one side wants to annihilate the other? Is it ok to commit genocide in the face such an enemy? In this book the dialog between the principle and supporting characters is important. The problem I had with this book was that Johnson paded the book with endless unneeded details of politics. uniforms and tech. This padding took away from the importance of the dialog. The action sequences were interesting and kept my attention. The banter between Jackie and Li'eth was entertaining but didn't add to the storyline. The parts of the book dealing with Jackie and the other xenopaths reactions to the minds of the Salik are worth reading. Much of the discussion between the various alien races about the ethics's of the Terrans in war was very good. The problem of the book was getting to these gems. ( )

Excellent end to the series (the wrapup is amusing, actually). Nice assortment of characters, and interesting culture clashes (especially in the all-species meeting). It's really funny, throughout this series, how many times the POV characters are required to _explain_, _patiently_ (or not so patiently), how things really are - from the V'Dan seeing them as children, to the other species trying to treat them as one, to the enemy needing the fact that they've lost explained. And Jacki's response to the method she had to use is perfect - she'd thought about it a lot, clearly! Unfortunately, it is explained clearly that all their adventures are done and there's no more stories here (explained to them, and through that explanation to the reader. That's the clever wrapup I mentioned above). When I started reading this, I was thinking I needed to go back and read the end of the previous book to get the details clearly in my mind (there's a good synopsis, but I wanted the details as well). But I'd just glance at the first few pages...and then I found myself five chapters in. I guess I didn't really need to review... Lovely. More, please! ( )