Scan barcode
the_smoking_gnu's review against another edition
2.0
2,5 stars
Gary Gibson has watched "Star Wars" [Exogorth] and "Flight of the Navigator" / "The Last Starfighter".
There is still too much torture and blackmail in this sequel.
I didn't like the return of a supposedly dead antagonist from the previous book.
For a space opera the world of the book is still rather small.
The books is a sequence of scenes in which one character forces another character to do something she / he doesn't want to do.
The end of the book reminded of the Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy,when Joshua Calvert goes on a mission to a far off system to discover a god like entity.
Gary Gibson has watched "Star Wars" [Exogorth] and "Flight of the Navigator" / "The Last Starfighter".
There is still too much torture and blackmail in this sequel.
I didn't like the return of a supposedly dead antagonist from the previous book.
For a space opera the world of the book is still rather small.
The books is a sequence of scenes in which one character forces another character to do something she / he doesn't want to do.
The end of the book reminded of the Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy,
gwentolios's review
1.0
Dnf, 22%
Tried to give it my best, but i found I only enjoyed one of the many povs and couldn't make myself read the others just for them
Tried to give it my best, but i found I only enjoyed one of the many povs and couldn't make myself read the others just for them
menkaur's review
2.0
The main character makes a mistake of being captured outside of the safety of her magician's ship. The rest of the book are the consequences of that mistake. The whole book I was asking myself - what kind of idiot would let herself be captured like that? And her partner? Idiot too. Apparently, in author's universe, there aren't any likable intelligent characters, except for the villein (Trader). I really dislike books like that. But the writing style is ok, and graphic details are enjoyable.
leighwright's review
4.0
The second book of the 'Shoal Sequence', Nova War picks up the pace and delivers an exciting story. Remarkable for its bizarre and interesting alien races, and a history wherein humanity is only a recent addition - and far out of their depth at that - this is unfolding into a most excellent space opera!
arbieroo's review
3.0
This sequel to [b:Stealing Light|3607898|Stealing Light|Gary Gibson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1297406365s/3607898.jpg|2144204] fixes many of its predecessor's problems; distractingly overt reference to other books is absent, as is clumsy foreshadowing and very predictable plotting. This makes it much better, but there are still some problems, mainly at the detailed sentence level of occasional poor grammar and bad phrasing.
The over-arching theme of both books (with at least one more to come) seems to be about nuclear proliferation and who should be allowed to control such devastating weapons. Of course in the books, its bombs that detonate entire stars, but still...Should older, more mature societies suppress everybody else? Is that idea patronising? Who can be trusted? Gibson's answer seems to be an independent body not bound to any particular political body or doctrine. This immediately raises in my mind the question, who watches the watchers? Maybe Gibson examines this in the third volume, which, if it shows continued improvement might be very good.
The over-arching theme of both books (with at least one more to come) seems to be about nuclear proliferation and who should be allowed to control such devastating weapons. Of course in the books, its bombs that detonate entire stars, but still...Should older, more mature societies suppress everybody else? Is that idea patronising? Who can be trusted? Gibson's answer seems to be an independent body not bound to any particular political body or doctrine. This immediately raises in my mind the question, who watches the watchers? Maybe Gibson examines this in the third volume, which, if it shows continued improvement might be very good.
More...