Written by Ryk Brown

Number 15 in The Frontiers Saga

Publisher: Frontiers Saga Publishing
Pages: 639
Genre: Space Opera, Science Fiction
Published: 2015-12-27
Original Language: English

New forces grow… Old friends are lost… New alliances are forged… Old weapons are made new… With political unrest growing, the Alliance must rush to rebuild their fleet and expand their 'sphere of influence' before their support runs out. But when the Jung up the ante, the Alliance must turn up the heat. Captain Nathan Scott and the Sol-Pentaurus Alliance must put everything on the line to save the Sol sector once and for all.

Read from 2021-07-24 to 2021-08-17
Read in English
Rating: 4/5
Review: That Which Other Men Cannot Do is a brilliant, and appropriately jarring, end to the first part of the Frontiers Saga.

As with my previous reviews of this series, being 15 books in, I’m not going to say anything at all about the plot, as any detail could potentially spoil something or other about earlier books. But many people had conversations, hard choices were made, stuff gets blown up, and there are space-fights. And a conclusion to the first 15 book arc in what should eventually become a 75(!) book series.

When I started out reading this series, I was grading it on a curve: my expectations were low. All I expected was a quick and dirty, fun, space opera with space battles and spaceships and other space things. Now, at the last book, I’m grading it on the opposite end of the curve: I’m expecting to be emotionally involved with the characters, I’m expecting to be drawn into the story, and I’m expecting proper punches. And this book does deliver all of that.

However, as a book that’s supposed to be a conclusion to a 15 book section of a series, the first third of it seems a little misplaced – like it should have been part of the previous book, or even had a book of its own. There was enough setup before this that I expected things to be turned up to 11 from the start. They did get turned up to 11 all right, but getting there took too long.

That said, I inhaled the last half of this book. Parts of it were truly thrilling, parts of it were truly emotional, and it was unpredictable enough that I felt like a sense of expected fulfilment or resolution was being held back from me, while at the same time feeling like I was getting more than I deserved. It’s hard to say much about it without spoiling anything, but in one way the ending felt very wrong. In another way it felt very appropriate. I liked it a lot, but it made me very uncomfortable.

For every book I read in this series, the more sure I become that the Frontiers Saga is a series of books that will, at some point, properly take off. And the scope of this project, with 5 sets of 15 books having been promised, is massive. If all these sets end up being as good, or even close to as good, as the first set, it’ll be an absolutely remarkable achievement by Ryk Brown.