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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781416555216
ISBN number: 1416555218
Label: Baen
Manufacturer: Baen
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: February 05, 2008
Publishing house: Baen
Sale Popularity Level: 27139
Studio: Baen
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
In the midst of recovering from their successful if casualty prone very first mission, the crew of the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade are suddenly scrambled back into action. All other priorities take second place as word arrives on earth of a gate colony which has fallen to an unidentified alien assault. As the only space ship currently available to the Human-Adar Alliance, the Vorpal Blade is dispatched to find out what happened to the colony, rescue any survivors and learn the identity of the attackers.
With new complexities added to the universe started in the novel Into the Looking Glass and continued in Vorpal Blade, Manxome Foe continues the tradition of non-stop action, valorous if quirky characters and rigorous science drawn from the frontiers of current theory. The odd-ball crew of the Vorpal Blade is an unlikely savior of earth, but none dare say they quail at engaging the Manxome Foe.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This book, like its predecessors, is an utterly ridiculous space blast-em-up with aliens, spaceships, power armour suits, and a thin veneer of science to make it seem like you're learning something in the process.
It's still an entertaining read though. The action is good, the dialog is snappy, and the ideas are novel enough that the book isn't as predictable as some in the genre.
Thing I didn't like were the not-swear-words in the book, the wholesale importation of characters and language from other series ("Shiny!", from Firefly, and Portana, from the "Down to the Sea" series"), mainly because they were obvious nods to fandom.
The way the book ended on an anti-French note, of all things, after cool action sequences was just jarring. The crew of the Blade informing the President of the US that the French aren't allowed to defend the planet, because, they're, well, French, was ridiculous. Chinese? Ok. Russians? Sure! French? Hell no! They aren't allowed to contribute to the defense of the planet and help prevent the extinction of Humanity! (Except the French Foreign Legion!).
David Weber's Armageddon Inheritance did an excellent job of presenting a fairly reasonable and interesting look at the gearing up of Earth to fight alien invaders to-the-death, without falling back into right-wing hyperbole. I've read more than a few rah-rah-America technothrillers in the past, but there's a line at where it becomes just silly and detracts from the book, and this book managed to just cross that line at the end.
Rated by buyers 
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The crew of the Vorpal Blade has barely returned from their dangerous and challenging very first mission before they are called back into action in "Manxome Foe". When word reaches Earth that a gate colony has been destroyed, investigation soon shows not one threat but many. The Marines and sailors of the Vorpal Blade find themselves on an impossible mission to stop a dangerous Dreen enemy in this exciting, involving military fantasy, recommended as a top pick for any lending library where military science fiction is popular.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Rated by buyers -
Well, the author pretty much put his foot in his mouth in his wrap up chapter in the previous book. He basically stated "The heck with critics. I'm going to teach physics!!!" That did not last long, or work out well. Hard SciFi is great - but not over the top. This book treats the physics and science as it should be - part of the story, not damn boring lectures. The action was much improved, the pace was faster, and overall this was a much better book. Miriam Moon in getting interesting, interesting, interesting - and hot.
The title of the book "Manxome Foe" - like Vorpal and Looking Glass, is right out of Lewis Carroll...
"Jabberwocky"
"He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought..."
It's also unusual for so many hard cover titles to come out in such a short time for the same series - that's what comes from jobbing it out, and the publisher having confidence in the books.
Great SciFi, decent writing, another interesting plot, and a new alien race.
One part of the book that was really, really poorly thought out was the final page. I won't spoil it. My analogy (from memory) was from "Fail Safe." Two airmen are in the computer room when a circuit fries. One of the guys smells the burning electronics and comments on it. The other twit basically answers that it's him burning up because he's mad. No followup, nothing. Why have all that security, checking, testing, etc., just to totally ignore the results? "Fail Safe" really FAILED on that point, and the book does as well.
The two well known characters that are missing from this book, well, have no place in this book. Come on, they hardly had a place in the previous book!
The final battle in this book - a page turner!!
Rated by buyers -
Manxome Foe is a good fast paced story in space. As usual a good yarn with lots of action from Mr.Ringo and Mr.Taylor. However, what happened to the hitch hiking energy/thought creature? It was introduced, in the story for awhile and poof forgotten till the end with a rather oblique reference. Also it ends with the thought that it is a prequel to the Posleen series. Really very minor differences between the Dreen and Posleen. Wait until it is in paperback or the used price goes way down. Worth a few bucks, but certainly not full price.
Rated by buyers 
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I hadn't read the previous book, Vorpal Blade, before reading this book and I only purchased this one because of the reviews by amazonians. I am left dumbstruck about the reviews for this book after reading it. It's very short and yet it's able to be slow in parts. I liked some aspects of it so I can give it 2 stars, barely. I found myself gagging due to the exaggerated love of all things american in the book. It was like listening to the american anthem a hundred times over, and so much cheese.
I hated this book and I usually like almost every scifi book I read for various reasons. Any fan of good scifi will dislike this book.
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