A review by chaghi
The Trials by Linda Nagata

2.0

Good follow-up to First Light. Though the first 3rd of the book is super slow and boring if you compare it with the pace and action of the previous book. Fortunately later on it gets up to speed.

Also, the author annoyed the hell out of me (re)explaining and (re)visiting every character and situation that were introduced in the first book. A book that I had just read a week or so before. I know, sometimes this kind of thing is forced by the publisher/editor in an attempt to make the second book accessible to those who haven't read the previous one. But come on... there are limits! In this case this is a tightly coupled trilogy, with every book in the series published just months after the previous one. There is absolutely no point in reading The Trials if you haven't read First Light before. So there is no need to annoy your readers trying to "fix" something that is clearly un-fixable.

Is the third book going to include an abridged version of First Light and The Trials interlaced with the main story? I really hope it doesn't...

Anyway, despite these shortcomings, the story is good, and I'm definitely going to read the third part (Going Dark).