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andrewabernathy's review
5.0
This was my first book by C.S. Friedman and it set me off on a search for more of her work, but the others have not been nearly as appealing to me. I felt the ending was a bit of a letdown, but overall I really enjoyed this book.
bmorerach's review
4.0
Really good, though took a little patience to get into it at the beginning.
Good world building, solid plot.
Good world building, solid plot.
wyvernfriend's review
3.0
I actually wanted to like this but somehow it didn't work all that well for me.
The Braxana and the Azean have been at war for generations. Braxana have a complicated society that's obscure to all but the initiated. Azeans are masters of genetic science and have their own rules that are also complicated and strange. Neither like each other and both consider that they know best. Zatar and Anzha are two generals on each side and they have made this war their own.
Somehow it just didn't work for me, it was interesting but I just didn't care all that much about any of the characters and when there were leaps in time I often didn't follow what was happening quick enough. I can see why some people would love it, but I could also see why some would dislike it. Maybe if I had read it earlier in my life I would have preferred it. I'm going to read the sequel to see if I want to keep them both.
The Braxana and the Azean have been at war for generations. Braxana have a complicated society that's obscure to all but the initiated. Azeans are masters of genetic science and have their own rules that are also complicated and strange. Neither like each other and both consider that they know best. Zatar and Anzha are two generals on each side and they have made this war their own.
Somehow it just didn't work for me, it was interesting but I just didn't care all that much about any of the characters and when there were leaps in time I often didn't follow what was happening quick enough. I can see why some people would love it, but I could also see why some would dislike it. Maybe if I had read it earlier in my life I would have preferred it. I'm going to read the sequel to see if I want to keep them both.
ramseyhootman's review
4.0
This is one of those books I've passed over on bookstore shelves for years. Finally downloaded a sample and was hooked. In a purely literary sense, it's pretty rough. But that didn't matter. It was clever, it was interesting, it was epic in every sense of the word, and it had me turning pages all the way to the end. Which is all that really matters. I'm a sucker for alien culture stories of any kind.
My one criticism is that the end is rather abrupt and, honestly, did not feel emotionally satisfying to me. I think because most of the book spent so much time playing up extremes - everything was the MOST sensual or frightening or [whatever] that [whoever] had ever experienced, so there was nowhere further for the climax to go, if that makes any sense. I didn't feel like the emotional resolution really worked for the characters, either. A "bad" ending will usually sour a book for me, but in this case I'm going to call it a minor quibble. Because so many of the chapters are almost self-contained stories, I was satisfied on many counts on many occasions, and the ending was more of a minor disappointment.
Also, I do have to comment on the edition I was reading - I downloaded the 15th anniversary edition on my Kindle. And the thing is ridiculously riddled with typos. "To" instead of "too," actually incorrect words like "fly" instead of "try," and a ton of misplaced commas and other miscellaneous punctuation. There was even one paragraph that had been split by a break right in the middle. It felt like someone had manually re-typed the entire thing and not gone back to proofread. Yeesh.
My one criticism is that the end is rather abrupt and, honestly, did not feel emotionally satisfying to me. I think because most of the book spent so much time playing up extremes - everything was the MOST sensual or frightening or [whatever] that [whoever] had ever experienced, so there was nowhere further for the climax to go, if that makes any sense. I didn't feel like the emotional resolution really worked for the characters, either. A "bad" ending will usually sour a book for me, but in this case I'm going to call it a minor quibble. Because so many of the chapters are almost self-contained stories, I was satisfied on many counts on many occasions, and the ending was more of a minor disappointment.
Also, I do have to comment on the edition I was reading - I downloaded the 15th anniversary edition on my Kindle. And the thing is ridiculously riddled with typos. "To" instead of "too," actually incorrect words like "fly" instead of "try," and a ton of misplaced commas and other miscellaneous punctuation. There was even one paragraph that had been split by a break right in the middle. It felt like someone had manually re-typed the entire thing and not gone back to proofread. Yeesh.
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