Links: Our review of Live Free or Die / Show Article /

John Ringo's Deathstar Space Opera continues in Citadel: Troy Rising II with a look at what it takes to make a "two trillion ton nickel-iron" asteroid into a battle-station able to guard the hyper-spatial gate to the solar system. In the first book, Live Free Or Die Tyler Vernon, ex SF author and the richest man in the solar system, thanks to some shrewd Yankee trading (except that he's actually a rebel), built a solar mining array and used it to transform a big freaking rock into Earth's own death-star--Troy. Now, with our original conquerors pushed back, we're in a race to make Troy fully operational before bigger, badder nasties decide to poke their scaly noses in where they don't belong.

Citadel follows Dana "Comet" Parker, a gifted Navy recruit, and Paul "Butch" Allen, a civilian welder, below decks to reveal the complexity of warfare in space, making this as much Space Operations as Space Opera. Either way, it's another fun ride by John Ringo.

Product Description: Between the Solar Array Pumped Laser and Troy, the two trillion ton nickel-iron battlestation created by eccentric billionaire Tyler Vernon, Earth has managed to recapture the Sol system from their Horvath conquerors and begin entering the galactic millieu.

But when the Rangora Empire rapidly crushes humanity's only ally it becomes clear the war is just beginning. At the heart of nickel iron and starlight are the people, Marines, Navy and civilians, who make Troy a living, breathing, engine of war. Survivors of apocalypse, they know the cost of failure. If this Troy falls, no one will be left to write the epic.

Citadel continues the saga begun in Live Free or Die, following the paths of several characters during the first years of The Spiral Arm Wars culminating in the First Battle of E Eridani.

(Source: Baen)