There were so many things wrong with this book that I had to keep checking if it was written by the same author who wrote Steel World. The main character, Kyle Riggs, loses both his children to a horrific alien invasion ship, and does he care after the first like 2 chapters? No. Why? There's a hot tan babe on board the ship who was also captured, and who btw is a decade younger than her and meant to join his class next year as his student. It is plain icky and him not caring about his dead kids for more than 25 pages combined in this text sets the mood for the whole book. What makes it worse is there is not a single likeable character in this book, with Captain Crow being one of the worst offenders. That man's egotistical, power-hungry ramblings throws off this entire book. 

Now, the actual premise behind this book is good. There are about 70+ alien ships circling land on earth looking for worthy ship commanders who have to pass a series of tests to be able to live and take control of these ships. These ships are made out of nanobots which allows Riggs, Crow, and the rest of the successful commanders who band together under the "Star Force" banner, to see where enemy ships might be in contrast to the fleet's location. Riggs, due to his computer science background and apparent military background, takes control of the Force's Strategising and engagement with Earth (much to Crow's annoyance). The bad news is that alien machine spider-thingos called macros are currently killing their way through South America and the only way to kill them is to use nuclear technology, or, as Riggs realises, alien technology (who made this alien technology is unknown, but we do know that they aren't blue). Riggs sets up shop on an island in the Caribbean near South America, builds a whole bunch of weapon and ship manufacturing factories and starts training an elite force of marines

who he injects with an alien serum that makes them faster, stronger, harder to kill

. They eventually win the on-ground assault and force the Macros into a confrontation in space which occurs between Riggs and one of the ships. The result? The Macros will stop attacking earth in exchange for an Earth army for the next unknown time period. I hated that fucking ending. The end.