Remy G's Reviews > Earth Lost

The second installment of author Daniel Arenson’s Earthrise series opens with Kara walking the streets of Corpus City as the skies “bleed,” with an alien cornering her in the mechanical subterranean city. The action quickly returns to Marco and his fellow soldiers aboard a transport rocket in space, which they find more technologically-advanced than Earth. Marco is homesick for his father and his girlfriend Kemi, with whom he ultimately has a reunion. Marco finds time to work on his novel, distraught at learning that only half of soldiers sent to fight the scum return home.

The soldiers receive a distress call from the lunar colony Corpus, where their ship impacts and it loses its azoth heart, a second one compatible with the crashed ship’s engine deep within the moon. Corpus City is deserted, and as the crew delves into the colony, a saboteur proves to be among their ranks, with the android Osiris the initial suspect. As they progress deeper, several battles with the scum that had caused the colony to fall erupt, some twists and deaths towards the end of the book, which ends with the nightmares they experienced on Corpus behind them.

All in all, I definitely found the sequel to be a fairly straightforward and consequentially enjoyable science-fiction story, with plenty of action and twists, and room naturally left to continue the storyline. As with most literary series, interested parties would best begin with the first entry of the franchise, given the return of most characters, and the author could have definitely called the antagonistic aliens something other than “the scum.” Regardless of its flaws, I would definitely recommend Earth Lost to those that enjoyed its precursor, and look forward to reading its successors.