Steve Gibson
This is a good space opera adventure read. I liked that the level of threat and danger is continuous from the beginning of the story through to the end.
The parts I liked the best were the boarding of the alien starship and the space battles. The protagonists are faced with the daunting task of seizing control of an alien spacecraft that was built by an unknown civilization thousands of years ago. How they attempt to accomplish that is unique in my reading experience. I would never have thought of trying that. This book is only minimally military fiction. The space battles are few and far between, but I liked how they are handled. The opposing sides are alien cultures to each other and employ different weapons and tactics. It is refreshing to see battle postulated between mismatched military cultures. Military fiction is overflowing with fictional alien cultures that are armed exactly the same on each side. I liked the approach that each side had different strengths and weaknesses when they meet in battle.
The part I found the hardest was the character exposition. For me, the dialogue between the characters dragged. I found positive and negative in the character relations. It is a good thing that the protagonists are not a smoothly working team. Again science fiction books are filled with the heroes being of one mind and never disagreeing. In this book, the protagonists disagree and argue about what to do at each stage of the mission. I found that realistic and somewhat refreshing, while also getting a little tired of the bickering.
The leader seemed too much of a martinet during the first part of the book. He is always sure of what to do next, and orders his team to shut up and obey him. This felt like an unlikely style of leadership because they were such a small group in a tiny little scout craft. Then toward the end he changes, but starts trying to sleep with his underlings. Perhaps realistic for a man, but it irritated me.
I enjoyed this read and would read a sequel.
Good children's adventure book. Tee the heroine has several important adventures. Her family and friends help her foil the villains. Seems to be a good start to an continuing story.
This is one crazy masterpiece. I enjoyed it. About 90 percent of the book is written in 1st person, past, crazy shorthand style. I was OK with the abbreviated style of writing, but I could imagine some readers would hate it and give up.
The book is Science Fiction of the old school variety.
Fun light cozy mystery. I enjoy the chase of the murderer. There are misleading clues that keep the reader guessing.
Another great book in the series. Rose Point is number 2, continuing the story of Captain Reese and her crew. I enjoyed this book even more than the first in the series. It has a very different setting. The entire book is set on the planet of the Eldritch and the crewmember Hirianthial.
The planet of the Eldritch is a stubbornly primitive and feudal society. The crew must step carefully in this xenophobic world. This book is more fantasy romance than space opera.
This is a very well written story. I had a hard time putting the book down. The characters were clearly drawn and their relationships drove the story. Who cares about who, and who can and will help who. We meet the Queen and those loyal to her.
My only criticism is what we hear about the villains. The villains seem one dimensional. They are pure evil, with no explanation or moderation. Fortunately the other characters are so well drawn that I could overlook this one weakness.
I recommend this story for any readers of fantasy and even people like me who lean more toward science fiction. The book should be suitable for readers as young as low middle school. There is only gentle mention of sexual matters and some moderate violence.
Murder out of the Blue is a light entertaining read. I easily finished it in three days. It is about half the length of the average full size fiction work.
This steampunk story is set in an alternate world of English empire, at maybe the late 1800s. There is heavier than air travel and even space travel. The story is completely set on an airship traveling from Africa to India.
The heroine is a young Indian woman who is a first class passenger and a well-to-do citizen of the empire, but who faces prejudice because of her skin color.
The prejudice facing Maliha Anderson is well handled and feels realistic. One odd thing I noticed in the book, after I finished was that every character who had alternative gender preferences came to a bad end. Three characters who were gay, and had alternate livestyles were punished or came to a bad end in the book.
This is a well done steampunk book that is a quick read and a fun murder mystery with a smart and heroic female amateur sleuth. I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series.
Very well written and crafted story of anti-aging technology in the future. We travel through space with realistic people with an difficult challenge. A huge corporation wants the secret to longevity that the Captain has flowing in her veins.
How the crew deal with the problems that come up in space and on land is an interesting story to follow.
This book is suitable for reading from middle school and up. There is mention of sex and some deaths, but little direct violence. It is an enjoyable read.
Very nearly a great book. What a likable heroine. She is naive but no one's victim. She has family and friends she can count on. She has implacable enemies coming to destroy her life. She meet enemies with expert martial arts and never backs down.
Now for the criticism. There is much more POV head hopping than is acceptable in modern books. Anyway, the book rises to levels of interest and compassion that makes me think with another strong pass of editing this could be a 5 star masterpiece.
Have finished my third rereading of this book. This book and its sequel impressed me with the worldbuilding of the alien races. The story has at least three elements going for it. It has conflict between space faring races, strange but interesting cultural traits and habits of the races, and characters that I was intersted in. I was especially interested in Caitlin and Tully, and the minor houses of Jao. The authors introduce a great deal about the relationships of power and decisionmaking in the different cultures. I could see a school class spending a full semester using this book to explore alternative political power relations. The Ekhat would be the simplest. I really wanted to know what would happen to each character. Even minor characters are introduced with interesting stories.
The relationship between the Jao and the humans of Earth is complicated. It may be a path from hate to love over the history of the relationship. Fear, distrust, trust and promise are building the relationship and guide the decisions made by the members of the Jao and humans, as they prepare to fight the Ekhat. The relationship between humans and the Jao culture is fraught with tension and the potential for misunderstanding. There are many terms to explain the cultural differences the races have, but I found them easy to follow because of the good writing.
The world building is very impressive. There are three fully sentient races described in the story, the Humans, Jao, and Ekhat. Each has its strengths, weaknesses, oddities and traditions. I kept thinking that this reminds me of humans. The same 4 points could be made about me and all the people I know. This is a great way to relate the strange alien races to my own life and understanding.
The greatest tension in the book, after the difficulty of the different races communicating successfully across their barriers of difference is the looming threat of the Ekhat battle ships that will destroy anyone they encounter that are not Ekhat. This dangerous thread impacts every other storyline throughout the book, while not distracting from the interesting stories being told. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy military sci-fi or cross-cultural fiction.
I was intrigued by the faster than light technology used in the series. The frame point network is a unique addition to faster-than-light travel in science fiction and might possibly end up having some similarity to an actual technological solution to ftl, if humans ever achieve that.
When I finished the sequel I was ready to plunge into the next step in the story. Alas, I learned K. D. Wentworth died in 2012 and the third book in the series was not finished. My best wishes go to her family and friends.
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I enjoyed this space opera with a strong female lead. And I like Reese the captain because she makes mistakes, pushes friends away, and is not a very dangerous fighter. But she is loyal and does the best she can to do good and keep her promises. I immediately got the next book, so I can continue the story!
One of those book you lose sleep over. I think I read this one in two days. And, I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks afterward. We think a great deal about trust, identity, and what would be important to us, if fighting for aliens was what kept humans alive.
Have finished reading Heaven's Queen for a second time. I found the first 100 pages slow for me. But, then it really kicks into high gear for me. I love when Devi goes to Nova's family's space station. I was on the edge of my seat as she approached Dark Star station.
Like some other reviewers, I also did not like how she pays back Anthony for his care and concern. But, a heroine does not have to be perfect. She can have flaws and behave in ways that we don't agree with. I forgive a great deal, because Devi has made a promise to the young girls who are being exploited that she risks everything to keep. As you see when you read this story, she is not just risking her life. She is risking much, much more. Many of the people she must fight are good people who disagree with her decision.
The part I most enjoy is the interaction Devi must go through with the alien races to accomplish her impossible mission. She talks to alien races that are so beyond human comprehension that we barely exist on the same plane of existence.
This will be a very enjoyable book for some people. There is a great deal of violence and fighting. It felt like half the book was describing fighting or the aftermath of fighting. There is some graphic romance that is a major part of the story. This is full blown science fiction, with space ships, FTL travel, planets and alien races. If you can tolerate all that, I really think you should give this series a try. You should read the 3 books in order, they are tightly interlocked through chronological events.
Painful, but damn good. As many reviewers say, this book is a surprisingly good read. I don't often read zombie stories, but when I do I prefer to read ones like this. This book joins the apparently growing subgenre of different zombie tales.
I found the story fascinating from the first pages to the end. The shocking reveal had me gasping, but loyal to the book and the character. Well done.
This book goes into the science of the causes for humans becoming hungries, and takes a hard twist at the end that is shocking and heart-wrenching. Enjoy!
Light fun read. This cosy mystery fills the bill if you are looking for a one day read. The heroine owns a bakery and solves the crime with help from ladies in a retirement home. There is some light romantic interest in the local town cop. Expect a light frothy mystery pursuit by an inadvertent sleuth and you will get what you expect.
Fun light high school adventure with a zombie background. This was perfect for me, because I am not usually a zombie reader. There are no guns in this book. No one gets shot. The goal is to scientifically and medically help the zombies and prevent new infections, and discover the cause.
This story is more a teen detective story, with the zombies being the case that needs to be investigated. I enjoyed the science nerd young woman hero who saves the day. She works on saving the school as she works on getting a date to the homecoming dance.
I am looking forward to the future adventures of Kate.
Excellent old school space opera. It is a wonderful expression of aliens as central characters. The humans are rare, unusual and not the main characters. I am embarrassed to say I was on page 50 before I realized all the title implied.
This will be an entertaining read for anyone who likes spaceships and intercultural conflict. Suitable for middle-school and up. There is no sex, and some violence, betrayal and heavy conflict.
I am not going to say much. There have been tens of thousands of reviews of each of the books in the Twilight series. I read them in a little over a week and enjoyed them all. I will just mention what I enjoyed most in this last book, Breaking Dawn.
The battle at the end was very enjoyable to me. It was handled as all battles should be written about. There was a long period of preparation, diplomacy was involved, the most important goal was to avoid fighting, and the minds and emotions and goals of each of the leaders on both sides was crucial to the beginning of the conflict and the final resolution.
It would be too much of a spoiler to say what happens in the final battle, but I was very happy at the outcome.
This was a satisfying conclusion to this tetralogy of books.
I enjoyed this incredible ride of a story. Set in a future world and space, with most of the time spent on an alien planet with different biology and social animals, the story was about how we communicate.
The strongest theme and storyline is about how language divides us and bridges gaps between us. This aspect of the book is fascinating to me.
This has one of the most impressive heroines in fiction. Her preferred approach to hostility is to prevent a fight with words and cultural knowledge. That is what I'm talking about. I believe the most powerful weapon humans have is language, this author wrote about that idea.
We live the story with the characters. There is a naive narrator, who contributes to us learning through her questions.
One of my favorite reads of all time. If you like hard science fiction and like to think during your reads, this is a book for you.