Review: I read about 50 books a year. This made my top 5.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 21, 2013
I hope you will all pardon me. I read both books back to back, so I wrote the same review for both books.I was astounded and impressed by these independently published books.  I dug around for at least an hour trying to find what all other books Mr. Bennett had published, because they read like the finished product of an author with quite a bit of experience under his belt. If I had any clout at all, I would walk down to Baen books and beg them to consider making an offer to sign this author so these books could be more widely marketed.  I have been recommending these books to anyone who I vaguely think might be interested in them.I read the first book in pretty much one sitting, and immediately purchased the second book which, (due to the constraints of family life), took me two days to complete.  The storytelling sucked me in and left me craving more like a drug.  The science (especially the bio science side of things) was convincing and believable, even to a reader who has more than a passing interest in science, biology, and physics. The conflict over the ethics and legality of altering the genome of themselves and their children is a compelling part of the story as well. I have to say that my angsty inner teenager is really looking forward to seeing how the author handles the eventual clash of Kobani and Hub societies.I read a very nasty review earlier mentioning some similarities to the Science Fiction classic "Space Prison" by Tom Godwin. To be honest, it ticked me off. Having read both stories, I would have to say that they are similar to each other in the same way that "Planet of the Apes" is a knockoff of "Farnams Freehold" or "Twilight" is a plagiarism of "Romeo and Juliet."I actually asked around about this to a few authors that I occasionally chat with on a social networking site, and this is what author Ryk Spoor had to say to me:"I'd look at "The Fountains of Paradise" and "The Web Between the Worlds". As Clarke himself pointed out, both books came out within a year of each other, both involved a man (whose name was Merrick or Merrin) who was famed as the builder of the biggest bridge in the world, approached by a wealthy industrialist to attempt a far more ambitious undertaking, the construction of a space elevator, etc... There were a LOT of parallels between these books, yet they were written entirely separately.Unless "Koban" duplicates characters, dialogue, and detailed events from Godwin's work, at MOST it's going to be "inspired by" and at best it's "I had no idea Godwin wrote such a book". Many casual reviewers simply don't realize how many times the same ideas and even general plotlines have been used, and will continue to be used. I haven't read both books so I can't comment on the specific case here, but I'd bet there's no more plagiarism in it than there is in most other books."Enough with that nastiness, anyhow.I had a question about availability and distribution of the books. Is there any chance of the author contracting through one of those online companies that print and bind books? I would love to purchase a (preferably signed) hardbound or paperback copy to add to my bookshelf, as well as some others to loan out to my non ebook reading friends.I just wish I didn't have to wait til Fall to read the rest!