"The Armageddon Inheritance" by David Weber
https://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Inheritance-David-Weber/dp/0671721976/

Book number two of a three book space opera military science fiction
series. I reread the well printed MMPB published by Baen in 1993, my
book is the sixth printing from 2009. This is my favorite SF series of
all time as I have reread it eight or ten times now. In fact, the
binding of my book has broken since I have read it so many times. This
book has sadly has gone out of print as a standalone book. But, the
omnibus is still available as a new book:
https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Ashes-David-Weber/dp/141650933X/
And the first book in the series is still available new:
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856

55,000 years ago, a Fourth Imperium Utu class 2,000+ km diameter
planetoid, Dahak hull number 177291, dropped out of Euchanch drive due
to a supposed failure. Dahak and his 250,000 person crew were headed to
a picket post for forty years at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. It
had been 7,000 years since the last genocidal invasion of the
Achuultani, a race who periodically swept the Milky Way of all life, who
had destroyed three Imperiums and countless civilizations. But the FTL
drive failure was not a accident, it was sabotage. And the mutiny that followed exiled the mutineers and crew alike on Earth, the third planet
of the Sol System.

Today, the unmanned picket posts are warning of the imminent invasion by
the Achuultani. And Dahak is not receiving any warnings by hypercom
from Central Command. Dahak is transmitting a warning to Central
Command now as that capability was restored when Colin MacIntyre
defeated the mutineers. So, Dahak and his new crew of 100,000 Terrans
are going in search of help after offloading most of the space
battleships, the two massive industrial rebuilders, the space cruisers,
the space pinnaces, and the space fighters to help the Terrans fight off
the Achuultani scout forces, a force of well over 10,000 twenty
kilometer to forty kilometer long cylindrical battleships that want to
destroy all sapient beings.

I do not know why this is my favorite SF book and series of all time. I
think that I like the standup position of the chief protagonist, Colin
the First. Or that there are so many different species of intelligent
space races. Or that the book is written so tightly, especially when
compared to Weber's later works. Or that an self aware artificial intelligence shares the main protagonist job in the book, much like
Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress".

I keep on hoping that David Weber will write more books in the Dahak
series but, I doubt it. He did write the Safehold series which is along
the same lines as this book, overpowering space aliens and self aware artificial intelligences. BTW, there is an ending to the Safehold, Honorverse, and Dahak series that David Weber wrote as joke:

https://web.archive.org/web/20211128164744/https://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4078&sid=e6322fa55d3aaf53b9dfd49f72db54c7

Here is my 2006 review of the book: "Great sequel with awesome space
battle scenes. The story line is solid and the awesome battle scenes
are just the icing on the cake. Plus, I really enjoy dual scene stories."

My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (60 reviews)

Lynn


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