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mferrante83's review
4.0
Having previously read both The Myriad and The Wolf Star I jumped at reading R. M. Meluch’s The Sagittarius Command, the third book in The Tour of Merrimack, only to be stymied by its odd ebook formatting. I eventually came back to the title and powered through the short sentences and short paragraphs and as I suspected found the book as enjoyable as its predecessors. The Sagittarius Command picks up not too long after The Wolf Star with Captain Farragut having accepted the surrender of Roman Emperor and the threat of the Hive swarms bearing down on humanity. Earth and Palatine now find themselves uneasy, to put it quite mildly, allies against this new greater threat.
Many of my complaints from both The Myriad and The Wolf Star stand for The Sagittarius Command. However, as I mentioned, the biggest difficulty I had in reading the novel was the stylistic choice Meluch went for in her prose with short, fragmentary sentences and paragraphs. Take the following paragraph from the beginning of the book for example:
It is a stylistic approach that Meluch seems to reach for throughout the novel. Some paragraphs can be as little as one sentence long like this one later in the novel “Rob Roy Buchanan stared into his drink at a solitary table in Mad Bear O’s space bar in the main station of Fort Eisenhower.” While other can be longer, typically when exposition is involved (the single sentence I just mentioned is followed by a more typical paragraph about Mad Bear O’s). The jarring nature of the sparse prose is actually made worse since the ebook version adds line breaks between every paragraph (the hardcover print version doesn’t). Those line breaks are likely why I notice it more in The Sagittarius Command than in the first two novels. It’s strange how such a simple formatting decision can effect how one approaches a novel.
The Myriad and The Wolf Star weren’t books for deep characterization or lengthy musings and The Sagittarius Command does nothing to change that. The attempts at forming relationships between characters with perhaps one notable exception feel sort of tacked on and half-formed. I am less than fond of the romantic forbidden love relationship between Blue and Steele. The most interesting dynamic by far is that between Captain Farragut and the Patterner Augustus and The Sagittarius Command does a pretty good job at uncovering some of the deeper complexities of Augustus.
The Sagittarius Command (and the previous two novels) is a big blockbuster action movie of a novel. It is less about characterization and philosophical musings than it is about the thrill of the ride. The writing is sparse and takes a little getting used to but Meluch’s penchant for relying on dialogue and action over lengthy exposition makes for a constantly thrilling ride that passes by in the blink of an eye. This is a constantly entertaining series that fans of action sci-fi looking for a quick read should definitely jump on.
Many of my complaints from both The Myriad and The Wolf Star stand for The Sagittarius Command. However, as I mentioned, the biggest difficulty I had in reading the novel was the stylistic choice Meluch went for in her prose with short, fragmentary sentences and paragraphs. Take the following paragraph from the beginning of the book for example:
It was hot. There were no climate controls. Alien smells carried on a thin breeze through the open window. He heard the quiet whir of the transports. Voices. Footsteps. Loading and unloading. Strange spiraling song of green birds.
It is a stylistic approach that Meluch seems to reach for throughout the novel. Some paragraphs can be as little as one sentence long like this one later in the novel “Rob Roy Buchanan stared into his drink at a solitary table in Mad Bear O’s space bar in the main station of Fort Eisenhower.” While other can be longer, typically when exposition is involved (the single sentence I just mentioned is followed by a more typical paragraph about Mad Bear O’s). The jarring nature of the sparse prose is actually made worse since the ebook version adds line breaks between every paragraph (the hardcover print version doesn’t). Those line breaks are likely why I notice it more in The Sagittarius Command than in the first two novels. It’s strange how such a simple formatting decision can effect how one approaches a novel.
The Myriad and The Wolf Star weren’t books for deep characterization or lengthy musings and The Sagittarius Command does nothing to change that. The attempts at forming relationships between characters with perhaps one notable exception feel sort of tacked on and half-formed. I am less than fond of the romantic forbidden love relationship between Blue and Steele. The most interesting dynamic by far is that between Captain Farragut and the Patterner Augustus and The Sagittarius Command does a pretty good job at uncovering some of the deeper complexities of Augustus.
The Sagittarius Command (and the previous two novels) is a big blockbuster action movie of a novel. It is less about characterization and philosophical musings than it is about the thrill of the ride. The writing is sparse and takes a little getting used to but Meluch’s penchant for relying on dialogue and action over lengthy exposition makes for a constantly thrilling ride that passes by in the blink of an eye. This is a constantly entertaining series that fans of action sci-fi looking for a quick read should definitely jump on.
wealhtheow's review
3.0
Third in the USS Merrimack series. The year is 2445 CE, and Earth and the Palatine Empire (a neo-Roman group that broke away from Earth control a few generations ago) have declared a temporary truce in order to combat the Hive. The Hive cannot be reasoned with, cannot be stopped for long, and they will never, ever stop coming. Because they are hungry. And all life is food.
I read these as really excellent Star Trek:TOS fanfic, with Captain Farragut as a smarter, kinder version of James T Kirk and Augustus as a creepier version of Spock. I have an unfortunately huge crush on Augustus, who is filled to the brim with rage and controlled by an intellect the size of a planet and a loyalty stronger than death. He gets his kicks psychologically torturing his cohorts--Farragut is the only person he has ever met who can deal with his mind games. In fact, Farragut misses Augustus's attempts to rip apart his psyche once he's gone. OTP! I have less interest in the other relationship in the books: between Steele and one of his marines, the sexually free, physically aggressive Kerry Blue. They are both complete numbskulls, and I wish they'd just get together and stop bothering me with Steele's constant "oh how I love her soft femininity" rumblings.
It took me a few chapters to get into this book--Meluch's style sounds like a particularly terse cowboy--but once I got past the sentence fragments and back into the adventure, I was hooked. I read it in a single sitting, unable to put it down to eat.
I read these as really excellent Star Trek:TOS fanfic, with Captain Farragut as a smarter, kinder version of James T Kirk and Augustus as a creepier version of Spock. I have an unfortunately huge crush on Augustus, who is filled to the brim with rage and controlled by an intellect the size of a planet and a loyalty stronger than death. He gets his kicks psychologically torturing his cohorts--Farragut is the only person he has ever met who can deal with his mind games. In fact, Farragut misses Augustus's attempts to rip apart his psyche once he's gone. OTP! I have less interest in the other relationship in the books: between Steele and one of his marines, the sexually free, physically aggressive Kerry Blue. They are both complete numbskulls, and I wish they'd just get together and stop bothering me with Steele's constant "oh how I love her soft femininity" rumblings.
It took me a few chapters to get into this book--Meluch's style sounds like a particularly terse cowboy--but once I got past the sentence fragments and back into the adventure, I was hooked. I read it in a single sitting, unable to put it down to eat.
brownbetty's review
4.0
I feel that giving a review consisting of twelve \o/ in a row might be considered a cop-out.
But it's tempting. This book is a sequel to [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873] and [b:The Myriad|218479|All the Myriad Ways|Larry Niven|/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|2015552], which I have already reviewed, and both of which I've given four stars. This book skips ahead a year from [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873], and picks up at the point where events veer from the obvious path for them to take after the close of the last book.
The book's main dramatic arc is about the war against the alien threat known as the Gorgons, a terrifying life-form which overturns their scientific understanding of the universe. So terrifying, that the Romans have unilaterally surrendered to the Americans, specifically to John Farragut, the only man to successfully take back a ship once the Gorgons boarded. The Roman Emperor surrendered command of his legions, and gave his patterner, Augustus, to Farragut. Augustus is a creation of advanced Roman medical science, capable of synthesizing unfathomable amounts of information, pushing the human body past sane limits, and programmed to be blindly loyal to the Caesar.
The war is desperate, and gets more desperate all the time, Farragut and the Romans are still at each others throats, allies only by bitterest necessity, and forced to rely on the non-military League of Earth Nations for military support. But the main tension for me in this book was between Farragut and Augustus. Farragut is a man born of privileged, his father is a judge, and his mother is a US senator, inheritor of wealth that puts him in the top 1% of the Earth's population. He's risen in the Navy by hard work, tactical genius, and a gift for people. He's an idealist who knows how often reality falls short of his ideals, and doesn't let that stand in his way.
Augustus was created by Roman science to be a weapon, a synthesis of man and machine with memories that go back only eight years. He's the sort of man who likes to pull the wings off flies to watch what happens, and he sees most humans as insects. Except the wings he's interested in are the wings of the human brain. (Metaphor failure, eject, eject!) He's a sadist, is what I'm getting at, who gets his jollies putting pins in the tender places of the minds of people around him.
Augustus despises Farragut, not only as an American, but as an idealist, but Farragut is the one man given authority over him by Caesar. Farragut is so relentlessly fair that he cannot help but respect Augustus' dedication and abilities. Basically, they are so incredibly slashable that I cannot stand it.
But it's tempting. This book is a sequel to [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873] and [b:The Myriad|218479|All the Myriad Ways|Larry Niven|/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|2015552], which I have already reviewed, and both of which I've given four stars. This book skips ahead a year from [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873], and picks up at the point where events veer from the obvious path for them to take after the close of the last book.
The book's main dramatic arc is about the war against the alien threat known as the Gorgons, a terrifying life-form which overturns their scientific understanding of the universe. So terrifying, that the Romans have unilaterally surrendered to the Americans, specifically to John Farragut, the only man to successfully take back a ship once the Gorgons boarded. The Roman Emperor surrendered command of his legions, and gave his patterner, Augustus, to Farragut. Augustus is a creation of advanced Roman medical science, capable of synthesizing unfathomable amounts of information, pushing the human body past sane limits, and programmed to be blindly loyal to the Caesar.
The war is desperate, and gets more desperate all the time, Farragut and the Romans are still at each others throats, allies only by bitterest necessity, and forced to rely on the non-military League of Earth Nations for military support. But the main tension for me in this book was between Farragut and Augustus. Farragut is a man born of privileged, his father is a judge, and his mother is a US senator, inheritor of wealth that puts him in the top 1% of the Earth's population. He's risen in the Navy by hard work, tactical genius, and a gift for people. He's an idealist who knows how often reality falls short of his ideals, and doesn't let that stand in his way.
Augustus was created by Roman science to be a weapon, a synthesis of man and machine with memories that go back only eight years. He's the sort of man who likes to pull the wings off flies to watch what happens, and he sees most humans as insects. Except the wings he's interested in are the wings of the human brain. (Metaphor failure, eject, eject!) He's a sadist, is what I'm getting at, who gets his jollies putting pins in the tender places of the minds of people around him.
Augustus despises Farragut, not only as an American, but as an idealist, but Farragut is the one man given authority over him by Caesar. Farragut is so relentlessly fair that he cannot help but respect Augustus' dedication and abilities. Basically, they are so incredibly slashable that I cannot stand it.
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