Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Ballistic (The Palladium Wars Book 2) by Marko Kloos
Citadel (The Palladium Wars Book 3) by Marko Kloos

While I inhaled book 1 (Aftershocks), book 2 and 3 weren't as amazing. They were both somewhere between good and really good, but I didn't love them as much as book 1. This is probably not a statement about the quality of the books -- I almost always love first books best, since the most world building is done in them and you're just meeting new characters.

Marko Kloos doesn't recap his previous books, not in a stand-alone section nor within the text itself. (Which is great when you're reading one of his books after another, but in a couple years when book 4 comes out, I'm going to be lost.) That makes books run together more, and I really couldn't tell you what happened in book 2 vs 3.

In the first book, set five years after a war between planets, a new war seemed to be ramping up. Books 2 and 3 continued that ramping up. Lots of small things happened (various attacks), but it was all just driving tension through the overall 'someone is trying to restart the war' plot.

Book 3 got a little more action-y than I enjoy (so many space battles, terrorist attacks, gun battles, military actions), but I guess that's military scifi for you.

As far as I can tell, it will be 2-3 years before book 4 comes out, which is a shame. Book 3 ended on a cliffhanger, and it's sad to think that by the time book 4 comes out, I will have forgotten all about the character who ended up stuck in a bad position.

Kloos has a second book series out, Frontlines, which currently has eight books out and another coming next year. I'm going to try the first book of it next and see if it works for me.