The Clone Empire [Mass Market Paperback]

Harris has survived. Despite the fact that the Unified Authority handed him a fleet of ships, manned by thousands of clones, with the sole purpose to use them as target practice for their new natural born navy. Surviving even when his enemies had far superior technology, and much better mobility. Even being shot, poisoned, and having the combat reflex that so defined him on the fritz, Harris has survived and so has his determination to have clone independence from their UA creators.

Still on Terraneau, with only a few thousand marines under his command. Harris knows that the wreckage in the sky above him doesn't account for nearly all of his missing fleet. Caught up playing politics with a man who wants to make himself king, General / Right Reverend Doctorow wants nothing more than for Harris and his marines to get off Terraneau so he can run the show unimpeded. Harris is recovering, though he's doubting himself in ways he's never doubted himself before; his courage, his physical ability.

When Harris discovers how his fleet escaped the battle above Terraneau, he risks his neck to go out and find them. The Enlisted Man's Empire is out there, they've liberated planets from the aliens who captured and cut them off, they have hundreds of ships, millions of soldiers, and one big problem. Harris is conscripted in handling the cancer in the Clone Empire before it takes them under. The problems for the Enlisted Man's Empire are only very tip of what's going on in the galaxy, and Harris, the clones, and the United Authority are not read for what's next.

I loved this book. While Harris is a general, he isn't tasked with commanding thousands of marines, in another all-out, do or die campaign. The Clone Empire feels like it goes back to the roots of what really drew me into the Harris series. Harris going from planet to planet, investigating, trying to get to the root of what the enemy's game is. There's intrigue, twists and turns you won't see coming, and Harris has absolutely no one he can really trust. Everyone is trying to play him for their own ends, Harris is aware of the predicament he's in, but he has no idea what's really coming. The book was exciting, beginning to end. There was large scale action and the hand to hand fighting in which you love seeing the last Liberator clone. The Clone Empire was a great read, Steven Kent brings it back to the roots of the series while still expanding the depth of the universe and characters. I can't wait to see what will happen next.

"Marines don't speculate. They always speck you right on time." --Wayson Harris

Steven L. Kent's 6th novel in the Wayson Harris Clone series, The Clone Empire, is an action-packed thrill ride. Marooned after nearly dying on Terraneau, all Harris wants is to get back into action and carry out vengeance against the UA now that the Avatari have apparently left their galaxy alone. Ellery Doctorow is making Harris's life on Terraneau difficult enough as it is, but Ava Gardner, his stunning clone girlfriend, just wants to settle down.

Harris is tested as he attempts his escape from the planet and discovers an energized, enlarged, and infiltrated Enlisted Man's Empire. Adding insult to injury, the Avatari return and bring incomprehensible destruction with them. Harris is tired and his drive to survive clashes with his desire to die. Teaming up yet again with Ray Freeman brings its own challenges while each mystery "solved" seems to bring more questions than answers.

Featuring hand-to-hand combat, naval space battles, and cataclysmic destruction, Kent's brash brand of military science fiction aims to please, but Kent doesn't stop there. Just the right amount of humor keeps things enjoyable while the humanity portrayed through the clones and other galactic misfits like Ray Freeman offers an interesting counterpoint to the malignancy of many of the natural-borns in Kent's universe. The Clone Empire is a fast-paced, suspenseful, and thoughtful setup for the final as-yet-unnamed book in the Wayson Harris Clone series.

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Our hero Wayson Harris is less of a protagonist in this Clone saga continuation than an observer of great and unpredictable forces at work. There is virtually no marine combat, for example, and Harris finds himself kicked around by superior officers. The plot lurches from one crisis to another in the manner of E. E. Doc Smith and ends on a sort of humans-in-desperate-peril cliff hanger. Gotta read the next one when it comes out.

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