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cainacol12's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
tenthrow's review against another edition
2.0
There are things about this book that I want to like, but the negatives outweigh the positives. For one, this thing reads like some attempt at thinly veiled right wing propaganda. I say thinly veiled because it isn't subtle... At all. Yet I get the feeling that the author thinks it is. Muslims are evil raping murderers. Yikes. I maybe could have given it a little grace if there was a muslim or two on the good guy's ship that wasn't just there for murdering and raping. You know like in real life, but no, that is too much to ask. The prose is decent and reads easily but there are so many details that are laughably lazy. Character names are so on the nose it takes you out of the story every time you read them. Governor Rasputin of Kremlin station... sigh. I found the mention of money distracting. The book is set 1000 years in our future but people who don't make a lot of money have a couple hundred dollars in their bank account and a big cargo haul is worth a million dollars. So in a thousand years they solved inflation and returned it to the levels we associate with the early 2000's? Lazy. I also find mil-sci stories that take place this far in the future extremely depressing when in that much time it's still just white Americans at war with Russia and {cringe} muslims. Why? Haskell is clearly a writer who COULD handle something better, so why? It's beyond frustrating.
reggiejayne's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic military science fiction. Character development, plot lines, and action scenes made this a nailbiter of a book. I really enjoyed, and will be reading the rest of the series.
necrotechnical's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
mikey_clarke's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
deathjestor's review
adventurous
dark
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
bezzarina's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual violence, Torture, Slavery, Trafficking, and Murder
Minor: Suicide, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Religious bigotry
monniebiloney's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
A very fun read. Finished it in about 3 hours.
Reminded me of 'Captain Tyler' for some odd reason.
No complaints. The female characters were treated with respect, and the main character was a nice guy.
I'd love to read more in the future, and it ended well.
Reminded me of 'Captain Tyler' for some odd reason.
No complaints. The female characters were treated with respect, and the main character was a nice guy.
I'd love to read more in the future, and it ended well.
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape, Slavery, Sexual violence, Torture, Child death, Colonisation, Murder, Sexual assault, Violence, War, Child abuse, Death, and Trafficking
natalie_bee's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book has such high ratings and I wanted desperately to love it. I love a series set in space! If I could give it more like 3.5-3.75 stars, I would.
Pros: space! Underdogs doing heroic things. Galaxy travel.
Cons: it began to become VERY pro America Christian propaganda feeling. I understand that in novels dealing with battles and war, there are “good” guys and “bad” guys. This is a novel about space. It talks of people from varying planets and systems. Why were both of the bad guys in this book of middle eastern descent and Russians? The stereotypical American boogeymen. Come on. They weren’t even well written fully formed characters. The Caliphate spies and soldiers reference Allah and the more extremist sides of Islam. The Russians quite literally spoke of vodka and repeatedly said “da” as of to prove they’re Russian. Really? You couldn’t come up with just warring political factions? You had to write comically bad caricatures of real cultures? Then of course the hero is a Christian male. Who else to defeat the foreign bad guys?
The first half of the book was honestly great. I liked it a lot. Then it progressively got bad. It felt like the characters were rushed so half of them that you were intended to care about, were nobodies that didn’t matter if they died. The whole end battle was just a clusterfuck of sci-fi jargon, rather than a well written battle. A bunch of people you’re introduced to die, and it’s just like “eh, well, space, what can ya do?”.
I had really high hopes for this and got let down.
Pros: space! Underdogs doing heroic things. Galaxy travel.
Cons: it began to become VERY pro America Christian propaganda feeling. I understand that in novels dealing with battles and war, there are “good” guys and “bad” guys. This is a novel about space. It talks of people from varying planets and systems. Why were both of the bad guys in this book of middle eastern descent and Russians? The stereotypical American boogeymen. Come on. They weren’t even well written fully formed characters. The Caliphate spies and soldiers reference Allah and the more extremist sides of Islam. The Russians quite literally spoke of vodka and repeatedly said “da” as of to prove they’re Russian. Really? You couldn’t come up with just warring political factions? You had to write comically bad caricatures of real cultures? Then of course the hero is a Christian male. Who else to defeat the foreign bad guys?
The first half of the book was honestly great. I liked it a lot. Then it progressively got bad. It felt like the characters were rushed so half of them that you were intended to care about, were nobodies that didn’t matter if they died. The whole end battle was just a clusterfuck of sci-fi jargon, rather than a well written battle. A bunch of people you’re introduced to die, and it’s just like “eh, well, space, what can ya do?”.
I had really high hopes for this and got let down.