A review by crispinsday
First Light by Linda Nagata

2.0

There are things I liked a lot - this is a military story which has zero sexism and zero racism, and the technological and ethical aspects felt unsettlingly current - but boy did it become a slog to read, so much so that the only feeling I had when the book ended was relief. Everything is long-winded and over explained, except for the romance, which is peculiarly underwritten, dull, and unconvincing. The action scenes and descriptions of technology, on the other hand, are detailed to a fault. This should have felt cinematic, but instead it read like an instruction manual I wasn't especially interested in reading. Overlong and underwhelming.