Publisher's Synopsis
This book contains CHAPTERS I to XVIII of THE HOUNDS OF WAR UNCHAINED. The Hounds of War Unchained tells the story of how the human race stumbles into a totally avoidable war with a ferocious enemy. In a distant future, when humans have settles thousands of inhabitable planets all across the Milky Way, politics continues as usual. Fractions and factions feud with each other and politicians, lobbyists, and pressure groups seek to determine the course of events and the direction of law-making, each to their own private advantage. Some of those involved may even believe that they are acting for the common good, and yet they fail to see what is really important. Disregard for reality and the unwillingness to see matters from the perspective of the other side lead to reckless behaviour. The notion that it is too cumbersome to negotiate for win-win situations and that by the assertive pursuit of private interests wealth and happiness can be obtained lead to a chain of events that causes a series of disasters and threatens the future of the human race, when an enemy is faced who possesses weapons of enormous strength. Having themselves just obtained new and extremely destructive means of warfare, and with the backing of financially powerful and politically well-connected pressure groups, humanity is lead into a death-trap from which there may not be an escape. By over-estimating her own strength and under-estimating the strength of the potential enemy, humanity is lured into a fatal war by reckless and thoughtless politicians who do not fully comprehend what they are up to and by self-delusion and gullibility, combined with the believe in self-serving interpretations of justice and egoism disguised as the pursuit for equitable conditions. The Hounds of War Unchained is also a story with ''tons'' of alien species, spaceships, galactic battles, politics and power plays, intrigues, treason and bravery, cunning stupidity and stupid cunningness, and some tender love affairs, which are more alluded than detailed. It is a story about the effects of wrong assumptions, about the failures of perspective, about the repercussions of neglect of reality, the cost of arrogance, the price people have to pay for believing without thinking and for not wanting to know what would be plainly visible if they just opened their eyes. But apart from that, it can be read plainly as a science fiction novel with some ingredients of space opera, lots of military stuff, some - though not very much - technology, and a couple of characters who show decent complexity to make a good read for an audience who appreciates more than mono-dimensional personalities.
