A review by chan_fry
Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson

4.0

I read this entire septology in 2010 and 2011, enjoying all seven books with almost no caveats. The storyline — which requires all seven books — is epic in scope. Multiple sentient races, multiple main characters, each with their own motivations and perspectives, are well described and fleshed out.

My (minor) complaints are (1) only the seventh book ends; the other six merely continue the story from one to the next; (2) especially early in the series, Andersons re-describes and re-introduces several characters and/or locations as if we hadn’t already learned of them; and (3) weirdly, the word “shudder” was excessively overused throughout the series. Before this, shudder was just a word I’d see or hear once a year or once or twice per book, but from now on I will forever associate the word with this series for how many times Anderson stuck to that word at the expense of all possible synonyms.

(In 2011, when I finished the series, I wrote a longer review of the entire series.)