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A review by pjonsson
Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson
3.0
This is indeed a large and very well written book. Unfortunately, after having read it I do not get the satisfied feeling that I would have expected. Instead I get a feeling that there was too much text and too little actual story. Actually it is not that there is no story. There is a lot of it in fact. But the author painstakingly goes on and on with details, interactions between people etc. etc. and nothing really happens for long periods of time. The entire book is more or less just an introduction to the actual story.
Each individual piece of the book is very good in itself but, surprisingly, when put the pieces together, the whole becomes…not so great. Each chapter is well written and it is actually fun to read but after a while you feel that you are eating a meal which turned into Groundhog Day while you were eating the entrée and you never get to continue to the main course.
When the book finally ends, with no less than five players with their own agenda a no qualms to promote it via deceit and treachery, the stage is set for a true space opera full of scheming, backstabbing and other such despicable activities. I cannot say that this is exactly my cup of tea. Having said that, there is also ample opportunity for action since a brutal war is looming at the horizon. If the next book is in the same style as this one I am afraid that the actual action will take a back seat though.
The story itself is quite compelling, to me at least, and holds quite a lot of promise. Thus I am quite hesitant to give up on the series even though I did not get the satisfaction out of this book as I hoped. In any case I rarely give up on a book series unless it turns out to be real crap. I will not dive into the next one right away though. I need a fix of some easier to read literature before I dig my eyes into the next on in this series.
Each individual piece of the book is very good in itself but, surprisingly, when put the pieces together, the whole becomes…not so great. Each chapter is well written and it is actually fun to read but after a while you feel that you are eating a meal which turned into Groundhog Day while you were eating the entrée and you never get to continue to the main course.
When the book finally ends, with no less than five players with their own agenda a no qualms to promote it via deceit and treachery, the stage is set for a true space opera full of scheming, backstabbing and other such despicable activities. I cannot say that this is exactly my cup of tea. Having said that, there is also ample opportunity for action since a brutal war is looming at the horizon. If the next book is in the same style as this one I am afraid that the actual action will take a back seat though.
The story itself is quite compelling, to me at least, and holds quite a lot of promise. Thus I am quite hesitant to give up on the series even though I did not get the satisfaction out of this book as I hoped. In any case I rarely give up on a book series unless it turns out to be real crap. I will not dive into the next one right away though. I need a fix of some easier to read literature before I dig my eyes into the next on in this series.