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Marko Kloos

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Chains of Command (Frontlines Book 4) Kindle Edition

by Marko Kloos (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 13,299 ratings

Book 4 of 8: Frontlines

Editors' pick Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

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The assault on Earth was thwarted by the destruction of the aliens’ seed ship, but with Mars still under Lanky control, survivors work frantically to rebuild fighting capacity and shore up planetary defenses. Platoon sergeant Andrew Grayson must crash-course train new volunteers—all while dulling his searing memories of battle with alcohol and meds.

Knowing Earth’s uneasy respite won’t last, the North American Commonwealth and its Sino-Russian allies hurtle toward two dangerous options: hit the Lanky forces on Mars or go after deserters who stole a fleet of invaluable warships critical to winning the war. Assigned to a small special ops recon mission to scout out the renegades’ stronghold on a distant moon, Grayson and his wife, dropship pilot Halley, again find themselves headed for the crucible of combat—and a shattering new campaign in the war for humanity’s future.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Marko Kloos’s military science fiction Frontlines series is quickly becoming one of our favorites, and his latest, Chains of Command, shows that Kloos is well on his way to becoming one of the genre’s best assets.” —io9

“Frontlines is earnest, optimistic, and fun, even as it deals with subject matter that’s intrinsically grim. It’s a story that strikes the perfect balance between escapism and serious reflection, and it’s the perfect military sci-fi series to escape into for a week or two.” —The Verge

About the Author

Marko Kloos was born and raised in Germany, in and around the city of Münster. In the past, he was a soldier, bookseller, freight dockworker, and corporate IT administrator before he decided that he wasn’t cut out for anything other than making up stuff for a living. He writes primarily science fiction and fantasy, his favorite genres since his youth, when he spent most of his allowance on German sci-fi pulp serials. He resides in New Hampshire with his wife, two children, and a roving pack of vicious dachshunds.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00YDJKE4G
Publisher ‏ : ‎ 47North (April 19, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 19, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2688 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 386 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #14,591 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #111 in Space Marine Science Fiction eBooks
- #123 in War & Military Action Fiction (Books)
- #126 in Space Opera Science Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 13,299 ratings

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Marko Kloos

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Marko Kloos was born in Germany and raised in and around the city of Münster.

Marko writes primarily science fiction and fantasy, his first genre love ever since his youth when he spent his allowance on pulp serials. He's the author of the bestselling Frontlines and Palladium Wars series of military science fiction.

Marko lives in New Hampshire with his wife, two children, and their roving pack of dachshunds.

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4.5 out of 5

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Mr.Bill

Chains of Command - it's gotten 'real-er'

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2024

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I have totally enjoyed the Frontlines series of books by Marko Kloos. 'Chains of Command' Book 4 is another to add to the list. The details of the action and the character development are outstanding. Combine that with the excellent voice performance by Luke Daniels, and you have one of the best adventures you can have sitting comfortable out of harms way. I highly recommend you begin with the first book, 'Enlistment,' to appreciate the journey of 'podhead' Grayson and the friends he meets along the way. - Mr.Bill

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Michael Lynn McGuire

Book number four of a five book series

Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2016

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Book number four of a five book series plus a couple of novella ebooks. The fifth book in the series is planned to be released in Feb 2017. The printing is trade paperback in POD (print on demand) format, my favorite. And Kloos gives a very personal shout out for the four people working at 47North, his publisher.

You want milsf, I've got your milsf right right here. The series is all about _Starship Troopers_ except everything is going bad. There are no wins against the aliens home planet here. The Earth is under siege and all XXX most of the colonies up to 150 light years away have been found and conquered by the Lankies.

The ten billion people living on Earth in 2115 are starving as the Lankies continue to throw things at the planet. The governments don't give out food stamps to the teeming masses anymore, they give out a daily two kilocalories of badly flavored soy. Except that two kcals is closer to one kcal with the food shortages. Even the one billion people living in the North American Union are starving.

BTW, this is the best personal statement that I have read in quite. You might have had to owned a dachshund in order to truly understand: "Marko lives in New Hampshire with his wife, two children, and roving pack of vicious dachshunds."

BTW, I am tempted for five stars, very tempted.

Pretty good number of reviews for a book that has only been out for a month. The first book in the series now has 2,355 reviews.

Somebody needs to give this series an award, it is that good.

3 people found this helpful

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JJCEO

There’s only war!

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2016

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Sergeant Andrew Grayson and spent time training youngsters to be super soldiers. He feels that he is just training young soldiers to go to the slaughter of fighting against the alien race called the Lankies. The Lankies have taken over many human colony worlds by massacring the human population. They had taken over Mars and they have isolated Earth by closing the portals that allow spacecraft to travel faster than light to many other systems. The Lankies almost took over the Earth and except for the heroic efforts of a few warriors they would have won.

Andrew is approached to join an elite attack team to go after the North American government leaders and elite population that abandoned the population of earth as they thought that it would soon fall to the Lankies. They stole the best technology, the best military spacecraft and the valuable resources needed to defend the Earth and to re-win the possession of Mars. They ran to an unknown world set up to be a paradise for them.

He accepts but he really doesn't know all of the plans and what the process to take back the hardware and supplies might be. He is promoted to a Lieutenant and selects his closest team members but he wonders what is he getting his friends and himself into……

Marko Kloos is an excellent author of military Sci-Fi stories. This is the fourth book of the is series and I liked them all. I recommend that you read the entire series in order as the character development and story progresses and builds throughout the entire series of books. This fourth book was very good and I enjoyed it. I could not stop reading the story until I finished it. I liked this book and I rated it at 5 stars.

3 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Cannon Fodder Agenda

Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2024

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The pace is very quick in this book. There is plenty of military action fighting and trying to keep as many troops alive as possible. They are going into the mission with half Intel from the major.

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J. Hulet

A great next book in the series!

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2016

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Chains of Command is the fourth book in the FRONTLINES SERIES and a real treat as far as a military science fiction novel goes. Let’s face it, at a point the adjustment from modern technology to future technology has settled in and the author is forced to actually write about characters and combat. Marko Kloos is up to the task.

The earth has been attacked by the Lankies and through an act of incredible heroism was saved. For Grayson the cost was high because he knew the heroes who sacrificed themselves to save the human race. Having an appreciation of that sacrifice makes the cowardly choice of the NORAM Commonwealth elites who fled with a large part of the remaining fleet even more disgusting to Grayson. As a mere NCO, he has very little power to change things and must settle in to his role as a Platoon Sergeant in charge of basic training platoon. It’s not a glorious job, but it’s important and his incredible breadth of combat experience makes him one of the best choices for the job. With his wife Halley still working as a dropship pilot instructor on the moon it is even better because he gets to see her much more often than in years passed.

As a consequence of the almost conquest of the Earth by the Lankies, the remainder of the NORAM Commonwealth and the Sino-Russian alliance have settled into a semi trusting cooperative situation. Instead of fighting each other, they are working to prepare to protect the Earth and are even learning to share technology in a limited fashion. For Grayson this means that he is able to focus on training new recruits to face the real foe and not on fighting other humans.

Just as Grayson is settling comfortably into his new role as trainer he is approached by a highly decorated Special Operations officer who needs his combat background for a special mission. For Grayson this is a very difficult choice because taking up his weapons and rejoining combat operations means losing the ability to see Halley and enjoy the joy that a good relationship means to someone who has risked their life over and over and can appreciate something not to be taken for granted. Will the call of returning to the fight be more than Grayson can resist or will he remain safely ensconced in his back area training billet?

Kloos does a good job of continuing the evolution of the characters that have been a part of the whole series. The emotional conflict of returning to the fight and risking ones life as an almost addiction is well depicted. For me, with a military background, this was very interesting indeed because it is something real, not just a figment of imagination. The story also carries enough quasi-patriotic fervor when describing the hatred and disdain that is prevalent towards the political elite who fled in the face of invasion.

I really enjoyed Chains of Command because Kloos didn’t try to sugar coat some difficult topics. The action sequences were interesting and well written. It’s not difficult to imagine a dropship conducting evasive maneuvers while in combat based on how the author describes things. I really enjoyed this installment of the series, perhaps even better than some of the books that came before.

3 people found this helpful

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Devon Rolston

Best of them so far probably

Reviewed in Canada on December 10, 2022

Verified Purchase

An introspective start is like the start of a rollercoaster and the rest of the book I couldn't put down and stayed up way too late reading a few times.
I can't speak to the subsequent books in this series yet, but I can say that this series is absolutely worth your time up to here at least if you at all enjoy this genre.

Very well put together book and series with no drab filler that respects your time.
(Bonus, that I recently learned, is that the author is stand up dude).

Miguel Angel Alonso Pulido

Sencillamente brutal y adictiva.

Reviewed in Spain on July 21, 2019

Verified Purchase

Una nueva entrega de la saga y y una nueva lectura absorbente, imaginativa y muy bien escrita. Ciencia ficción militar en su más pura expresión, y si has llegado a este libro ya estás más que enganchado. Ya me gustaría a mí escribir así. 100% recomendado y a por los dos siguientes. ¡Necesito más!

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Marcelo D T

Bem escrito, mostra bom conhecimento da rotina militar

Reviewed in Brazil on January 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

Para mim, que sou civil, o dia a dia dos soldados em guerra parece bem realista, assim como a relação entre os pares, subordinados e superiores.
Li toda a série desde o 1o livro e para quem gosta de ficção científica militar, recomendo essa série!

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N. Walton

Absolutely brilliant book. Can't wait to read the next!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 15, 2017

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This is book 4 in an absolutely brilliant series. These books are SERIOUS sci-fi. The characters are very well developed, and the environment doesn't feel derivative of BSG, B5, ST:TOS or some other federation-based futuristic military universe.

In the first three books, we learn of the tale of Andrew Grayson, a "PRC rat" who grew up in abject poverty, and took a draft in the military to escape a bleak, impoverished future. Years later, Andrew is now an instructor at a training academy passing on the knowledge he's gained fighting Humanity's new threat, an implacable, almost unstoppable alien foe. When it's revealed that, since the desertion of the majority of the military, that Andrew is one of a few select soldiers left with any actual experience, he's chosen for a risk-it-all mission that could determine whether humanity succeeds in winning back the Solar System.

I made a huge mistake and accidentally read this book first, and I can say that I didn't need the first three books. The way that the universe is introduced, and the characters behave are so well described that the book stands on its own two feet as a good book in and of itself. Now that I've realised my mistake, and gone back to read books 1 and 2, I can wholeheartedly say that the quality of the book is quite indicative of the whole series.

I can't wait to finish books 2 and 3, so that I can get onto book 5 and find out how things turn out! Superb read, VERY well recommended

One person found this helpful

rewand

Frontlines - continued

Reviewed in Australia on May 23, 2019

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I can't not read these. Love the writing, love the characters. All I ask it that you keep it going. You keep writing them, I'll keep reading them. If you haven't come across this series for goodness sake start at the beginning and you won't be disappointed.

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