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A review by spacenoirdetective
Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson
1.0
This book is largely lacking in good character development. It's space opera heavy on the opera. It's a soap opera with some originality but like any soap it's the same old, same old.
Things I liked:
* Trees that like to be read to
* the hydrogues themselves (who we see for only a page or two)
* pretty much all of the stuff on tree people's planet, Theroc.
* space gypsies that would live in difficult environments
* um...
And now for what I didn't care for. The space militaries in this book do not seem realistic to me. They seem poorly drawn compared to a lot of military scifi. Most of it was just boring.
Also the boringness of the characters. Big fat black woman space captain that likes to cook. I don't see her doing much captaining but hearing her talk about food so much was not terribly exciting. Next. The space military commander who shuts people out of airlocks. I just kept picturing Zap Brannigan from Futurama, only he actually has MORE depth than Kurt. The old king, boring. The executive really in charge who is really evil and cruel? Oh wow, I've NEVER seen that before! Young space cadet who wins over hearts by being so perfect? Bleh.
The only characters I liked were Jess Tamblyn, because I picture him as the lead actor from Spaceballs and Raymond/King Peter. Raymond/Peter is the only character worth reading, and he is the only one complex enough for me to care about. Not enough to really entice me to read further.
The problem with these books is they are written as if for a younger audience but marketed to an older one due to some kinky alien sex. Which brings us to the Ildarans, who I picture as looking like the aliens for Invader Zim. See, when books have poor descriptions of everything, I tend to fill in the blanks with my own choices. While this can be amusing it is also annoying. What do the Ildarans look like? The author describes them as humanoid, some with claws, some with topaz eyes, feathery hair, all of the different subtypes have different features but I can't picture them well. They are led by a bad Jabba clone, and while I kind of want to know how things will turn out, I am so overcome by indifference towards the dry and flavorless cultures surrounding these people that I found it difficult to embrace. Silly and melodramatic, very much wanted to love it but found very little I haven't seen done before, much better.
Things I liked:
* Trees that like to be read to
* the hydrogues themselves (who we see for only a page or two)
* pretty much all of the stuff on tree people's planet, Theroc.
* space gypsies that would live in difficult environments
* um...
And now for what I didn't care for. The space militaries in this book do not seem realistic to me. They seem poorly drawn compared to a lot of military scifi. Most of it was just boring.
Also the boringness of the characters. Big fat black woman space captain that likes to cook. I don't see her doing much captaining but hearing her talk about food so much was not terribly exciting. Next. The space military commander who shuts people out of airlocks. I just kept picturing Zap Brannigan from Futurama, only he actually has MORE depth than Kurt. The old king, boring. The executive really in charge who is really evil and cruel? Oh wow, I've NEVER seen that before! Young space cadet who wins over hearts by being so perfect? Bleh.
The only characters I liked were Jess Tamblyn, because I picture him as the lead actor from Spaceballs and Raymond/King Peter. Raymond/Peter is the only character worth reading, and he is the only one complex enough for me to care about. Not enough to really entice me to read further.
The problem with these books is they are written as if for a younger audience but marketed to an older one due to some kinky alien sex. Which brings us to the Ildarans, who I picture as looking like the aliens for Invader Zim. See, when books have poor descriptions of everything, I tend to fill in the blanks with my own choices. While this can be amusing it is also annoying. What do the Ildarans look like? The author describes them as humanoid, some with claws, some with topaz eyes, feathery hair, all of the different subtypes have different features but I can't picture them well. They are led by a bad Jabba clone, and while I kind of want to know how things will turn out, I am so overcome by indifference towards the dry and flavorless cultures surrounding these people that I found it difficult to embrace. Silly and melodramatic, very much wanted to love it but found very little I haven't seen done before, much better.