Why am I posting on a Sunday instead of a Monday? I’ll get into it more in this week’s Jake & Leon update section at the usual posting time but the short version is I won’t be posting Monday and this was the last dangling thread I have. So it gets posted early. Just…don’t read it until tomorrow if you’re a stickler for scheduling I guess.
Chapter By Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
In the last chapter of Robotech, it actually was the last chapter. It was all about tying up loose ends before the Invid arrived…which makes me wonder what they can even say in this chapter. Was this really needed when you could have just tied all the ends in the chapter or did you really feel the need to have an epilogue? I guess we’re about to find out, as we finish this book.
Oh right, the invasion. This is the result of doing the intro before reading the chapter.
So, the Invid arrive, destroying the Zentraedi on the factory satellite and that one crazed guy who moved to Space Station Liberty. The Starchildren are also wiped out, serving no real importance to the story since I didn’t really care about them. Oddly the Shimadas are not wiped out, but not because of their peace offering. The Invid just didn’t care. We’ve seen underground cities that our band traveled through that only got noticed because they did something that drew Invid forces in. What’s left of the Southern Cross and GMP are also devastated. It all happens so fast that what little resistance they put up just ticked the Regis off and we saw that coming.
As for the characters worth caring about: Nova disappears with some confusion as to where she ended up, though I get the feeling that’s a reference to some plothole at some point in the novels or trying to unite with the comics perhaps? At any rate she’s gone. Louie hides in Tokyo and tries to keep in contact with Earth forces, learning that Dana does indeed get to Tirol and join her group up with the Robotech forces there. As alluded to in a previous chapter’s “historical text” blurb Catherine and Johnny are kidnapped and Wolff running off from Valhalla (given the nickname “Soldertown” so Luceno didn’t forget or was reminded) in a failed attempt to rescue them. All it did was lead to the Wolff Pack getting slammed, Terry Weston dying (no confirmation about what happened to Misa during the attack on the Starchildren base), and both Nova and Carpenter leaving Wolff in the dust. Thus began the final steps to how we would meet him in the show itself.
Of course we know where all this leads. An attempt to expel the Invid will lead to Lancer ending up on Earth and assuming his Yellow Dancer disguise to hide from the Invid and their house slaves, another failed attempt will lead to Scott Bernard losing his fiancé and beginning the events of the Third Robotech War. Fun fact: the historic blurb of this epilogue is written by one “Maria Bartlet-Rand”, which I guess is supposed to be Rand and Rook’s daughter. Not having seen the recently made Robotech: Love Live movie adapted from the similarly named MOSPEDA direct to video special I don’t know if that’s how it plays out. We’ll be seeing an alternate future for our heroes in the comic reviews upon my return.
So that is Robotech: Before The Invid Storm. Coinciding with this emergency post is the full review of the book over at The Clutter Reports and when I return we’ll start the next Chapter By Chapter review. (Again, explanations in the update portion of tonight’s Jake & Leon comic post.) Next book we’ll see a sci-fi actor try to be a sci-fi author. Put away those headsets until then because virtual drugs still aren’t cool. See you soon, readers!
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