The Battle for Terra Two

Earth basked in the glow of a new interstellar age, saved from enslavement to the insectoid biofabs by the dramatic arrival of the Kronarin fleet. Laden with honors and riches, John Harrison, hero of the Biofab War, can finally live the good life--or can he? Unknown to the Alliance, renegade biofabs escaped to an alternate universe where under their brilliant Tactics Master they're breeding back to strength, readying a counter-strike against the people of both universes. Catapulted into a twisted image of his world, Harrison must find the biofabs' nest and take it out before a new generation hatches. It won't be easy--the biofabs have found deadly allies. And in this version of Earth, Harrison's a rebel on the run from the Fourth Reich. (2010 revision of 1986 Tor Books edition. 56,000 words.) The Battle for Terra Two is one of four novels that begins with a covert alien attempt to control Earth, ending with the battered forces of Galactic humanity battling impossible odds as an AI armada sweeps into our galaxy for its long-overdue reckoning with humanity. (AIs--Artificial Intelligences--cyborgs evolved over vast time from simpler machines to complex beings driven by the simple need to kill us all.)   All the books follow the crew of the Kronarin Fleet dreadnought Implacable and their Terran allies from the discovery of biofabs on Earth through ever-growing confrontations and diabolical alien machinations to the final battle. The plot line is akin to a nesting doll, each crisis spawning an even deadlier one. The blaster fire never stops--save for the occasional soothing cup of t'ata from Implacable's dodgy beveragers. (Implacable's a resurrected Imperial warship that sometimes chaffs at having been awakened and pressed into the service of such rude hands. It preferred its Imperial masters.) To be bested along the way are space pirates, Terra Two's last proconsul, mindslavers, various machine intelligences, a vile alternate Earth, the undying hand of the dead Kronarin Empire, a ubiquitous insectoid-blonde and of course, biofabs. All stirred into a rich bouillabaisse of an adventure that takes the reader on a far flung quest into the fantastic, but where in the end the old verities of honesty, valor and fellowship trump all.From The Battle for Terra Two:"I have a theory about the Empire," said Bill as the decks flashed by. "More whimsy than theory.  It never died. It's out there somewhere, manipulating us, the Kronarins, the Scotar, those killer machines--God only knows what else. All for some esoteric and rotten end. It's cold, malevolent, immortal and hopelessly mad. Evil." This was worse, John thought, stumbling over a helmet. Something out of Goya, the young dead tormented faces staring sightlessly, throats ripped out, necks broken, holes you could put your fist through. And everywhere the stench of burnt flesh and clouds of flies come to feast.Review"A modern descendant of the Doc Smith Lensman series. Space opera in the Grand Ol' Tradition."--Other Realms "Devotes of militaristic SF should enjoy [Berry's] books." --Kliatt "Kick-butt military science fiction." --Amazon reader review From the AuthorBiofab: biological fabrication. Biofab is a term growing in vogue with those who strive to engineer synthetic life.  (Never thought I'd write that as fact.)  I may be the progenitor of the term, having coined it in 1980 for The Biofab War, but I'm not militant about it. There's a collective unconscious of science fiction archetypes that slips quietly from generation to generation, Jules Verne to E.E. "Doc" Smith, Smith to Heinlein, Heinlein and Smith to many others.  We read, we forget and yet we don't: biofab. My former student, the much-loved Christopher Blair of Venice, Florida, to whom this book is dedicated, died last year.  He was 20.  A tall thin blond kid with an infectious grin, an unruly shock of hair and an other-worldly affect, he'd read all my books, memorizing them in startling detail.  He toted Terra Two around more than the other titles.  (Though rumor has it he had two copies, one for reading and one for stashing.)   A lad out of time, Chris would have been happy on Implacable, a Fleet commando, M11A blaster strapped low, the battle klaxon banging away as he rushed for the assault boats and another desperate fight. Upshield, upship, Chris. Godspeed.