Domination

 

THEIR GOAL IS SIMPLE: TOTAL DOMINATION.

With six arms and jaws that can snap a man in two, the warmongering race of aliens known as the Thule has conquered every planet they’ve attacked.

And now their invasion of Earth has begun.

Humanity’s only hope springs from a mysterious Thule legend about a Betrayer, who they believe will rise up and destroy their people. The American government tried to manufacture their own Betrayer by injecting children with Thule blood but time after time the experiment failed . . . until Colt McAlister.

A decade later, Colt is a 16-year-old cadet at the CHAOS Military Academy where he’s training to defend mankind. But he’s afraid that the alien blood may be turning him into a Thule—and he’s beginning to suspect that fulfilling his role as the Betrayer may cost him everything.

Experience a cosmic battle filled with high-tech gear, gateways to other planets, and ultimate stakes. Not everyone will survive. But heroes will rise up and step into their destiny in this earth-shaking conclusion to the C.H.A.O.S trilogy.

How else to follow Invasion (2011) and Alienation (2012) but with even more dastardly aliens and bigger explosions? This trilogy ender finds 16-year-old Colt and his two friends fending off the onslaughts of the Thule in a series of set pieces tailor-made for video game fans making the jump to books. There is nothing too fresh about the hypermasculine characters and love triangle, but the Thule DNA slowly mutating Colt is one of the series’ most interesting touches, and the final battle with Koenig lives up to its top billing. Good noisy war stuff, especially for reluctant readers. Grades 7-10. --Daniel Kraus