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scribal's review
3.0
I give this Skolian Empire volume three stars because I think it's one of the most satisfying in the series.
I dislike Romance as a genre in general because it constrains plot so tightly, but I think the sci-fi angle in this book and several others in the series is strong enough to offset that.
I dislike Romance as a genre in general because it constrains plot so tightly, but I think the sci-fi angle in this book and several others in the series is strong enough to offset that.
nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/193623.html[return][return]As I shuffled through Washington National Airport on my way to Utah (where I am currently suffering early-morning jetlag) one of the women on security spotted Primary Inversion clutched in my hands, and commented, "That's a very good book you're reading." Her agreement with my literary choices didn't prevent her from selecting me for secondary security screening, but she was quite right about the book: it is indeed good. It shares a certain amount of plot with Asaro's Hugo-nominated short story "Walk in Silence", which I absolutely hated, but somehow in this - her first novel! - she seemed to pull things together much more convincingly and coherently.[return][return]I was also minded to compare her brand of space opera featuring leading women characters very favourably with C.J. Cherryh's impenetrable Downbelow Station and Cyteen, and the imperialism and implausibilities of David Weber's first Honor Harrington novel, On Basilisk Station. Though I'm not at all a romance fan, I am a Bujold fan, and Primary Inversion seems to me to fit in that category. Looking forward to reading the rest now.
vailynst's review
3.0
Notes:
Currently on Audible +
Enjoyed the intimate look into a key figure in galactic politics. I thought the threads of trauma and after effects were well done. A haphazard setup for the series but the pieces fall together well towards the end. I'm curious to see how well the psionic powers will be farther explored in the series. Well, not explored as much as how it is shown to impact the characters and world.
Currently on Audible +
Enjoyed the intimate look into a key figure in galactic politics. I thought the threads of trauma and after effects were well done. A haphazard setup for the series but the pieces fall together well towards the end. I'm curious to see how well the psionic powers will be farther explored in the series. Well, not explored as much as how it is shown to impact the characters and world.
sstorm548's review against another edition
2.0
I was back and forth on this book as I read through it. There are two major sci-fi premises; the first, the idea of telepathy based on empathy and enhanced by some generic tech, was pretty interesting and well-applied throughout the book. It’s neatly tied to major plot points and had the effect of drawing the reader pleasantly into the story on an emotional level. The second, the “inversion” tech that hand-waves away the speed-of-light limitation, was a big miss. It essentially boils down to “hey, you can go faster than the speed of light if you just increase the value of c!” Not exactly that, but close enough. People familiar with the basic physics might be bothered by it.
The story’s pacing is uneven and the exposition is clumsy. The beginning and end of the book are exciting, but the middle drags. The reader is continually hit over the head with chunks of text explaining insignificant parts of the universe (Asaro seems to particularly enjoy envisioning user interfaces and holograms and generic computer programs). Emotions of major characters are explained at length, which comes across as amateurish in the writing. The ending is something that readers will see coming and leaves the more interesting threads of the plot unaddressed.
That last paragraph may be a bit hard on the book. Parts of it were exciting and like I said, the premise is interesting. People with less stringent standards on the science in their sci-fi and who appreciate an easy read with a little mindless action and romance might enjoy the book more than I did.
The story’s pacing is uneven and the exposition is clumsy. The beginning and end of the book are exciting, but the middle drags. The reader is continually hit over the head with chunks of text explaining insignificant parts of the universe (Asaro seems to particularly enjoy envisioning user interfaces and holograms and generic computer programs). Emotions of major characters are explained at length, which comes across as amateurish in the writing. The ending is something that readers will see coming and leaves the more interesting threads of the plot unaddressed.
That last paragraph may be a bit hard on the book. Parts of it were exciting and like I said, the premise is interesting. People with less stringent standards on the science in their sci-fi and who appreciate an easy read with a little mindless action and romance might enjoy the book more than I did.
j00j's review against another edition
2.0
Someone pitched this to me as "hard SF meets romance." I was intrigued, but ultimately rather disappointed. The hard SF bits are rather clunkily described (few authors can keep me interested in lengthy descriptions of their technology, particularly if it's an imagined visual/telepathic version of cyberspace...), and the rest of the plot is pretty standard. The only really intriguing concept here is the idea of empaths as soldiers-- the Skolians' most elite soldiers are also usually the most powerful empaths. That's... pretty wacky. Unfortunately, Asaro doesn't do quite enough on the social/cultural end of things (although she handwaves the scientific end of things away with drugs to keep the empaths from becoming overloaded with others' feelings) to convince me. Too bad, I find the concepts of empathy and telepathy intriguing, and few authors do it well.
In terms of hard SF meets romance with some incidental psychic stuff, [author: Scott Westerfeld] does a far better job in the Risen Empire books.
In terms of hard SF meets romance with some incidental psychic stuff, [author: Scott Westerfeld] does a far better job in the Risen Empire books.
tracydurnell's review against another edition
2.0
2.5*
This would have been a much better book if a) it wasn't written by a physicist (or she'd restrained herself from waxing poetic about her FTL drive and every other technology she invented) and b) it was half as long, or doubled the action. Literally the first section of the book is the characters going to a bar, disliking someone who tried to buy the h a drink, and going to the police to report them for looking suspicious.
I'll give the book credit for taking on PTSD but I would have preferred not having an entire section of the book devoted to handling it.
This would have been a much better book if a) it wasn't written by a physicist (or she'd restrained herself from waxing poetic about her FTL drive and every other technology she invented) and b) it was half as long, or doubled the action. Literally the first section of the book is the characters going to a bar, disliking someone who tried to buy the h a drink, and going to the police to report them for looking suspicious.
I'll give the book credit for taking on PTSD but I would have preferred not having an entire section of the book devoted to handling it.
lauriereadslohf's review against another edition
3.0
I read this over a decade ago & re-listened to it on audio while cleaning the house, exercising, cooking & driving to and from work and I didn't find it nearly as enthralling as I did the first time around. Maybe because I'd read it before or maybe because now I'm an oldish crab? I don't know, either way I kept wishing it would hurry up and end because I wanted to listen to something else. It's strange, I remembered this book as being emotionally draining and the torture scenes grueling but this time around I thought they were very sparse and didn't have that jarring effect they once did and I felt detached from the characters for the most part. Of course I could be confusing this with another of the Asaro books I read a decade ago.
October 2010 Just located my original 1998 review and I gave this five stars.
I liked Sauscony immediately. Her wry sense of humor, her leadership abilities and her emotional strength awed me and despite being full of high tech hardware she was easy to like and so very human. Her emotional battles were as gripping as the ones on the battlefield. It's that blend of emotional turmoil, politics, genuine, fully fleshed out characters that you can care about and the exciting action packed plot that made this such a gripping read for me. I've got to admit though that some of the technical aspects of the book did go way over my head but I enjoyed the book so very much and highly recommend it.
October 2010 Just located my original 1998 review and I gave this five stars.
I liked Sauscony immediately. Her wry sense of humor, her leadership abilities and her emotional strength awed me and despite being full of high tech hardware she was easy to like and so very human. Her emotional battles were as gripping as the ones on the battlefield. It's that blend of emotional turmoil, politics, genuine, fully fleshed out characters that you can care about and the exciting action packed plot that made this such a gripping read for me. I've got to admit though that some of the technical aspects of the book did go way over my head but I enjoyed the book so very much and highly recommend it.
belleanndthebook's review against another edition
4.5
The science in this book, or shall I say the fictional science in this book, is incredible. This book felt fast paced and action packed. Soz, the main character, also felt extremely well rounded. I really enjoyed all of the character building that happened on her end. My main complaints are mostly in the romantic elements of the plot because you really can’t think too deeply about the logic of the characters, but I still enjoyed the overall story.