Review: Cool story ruined by poor writing.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2014
I really enjoyed the overall concept of the book. I thought the premise, where an alien race steps in to prevent humans from acquiring new and dangerous technologies,  was intriguing.  Unfortunately,  the poor writing style sent the story downhill pretty quickly.On virtually EVERY page are SEVERAL pieces of dialog that are underlined for emphasis.  Thinking back to MY times in high school journalism, I recall that when you write something underlined, it is a signal to the PRINTER to italicize the word. Here, either the editor or publisher DIDN'T GET THAT MESSAGE, but it doesn't matter. There should never, EVER be as much italicized dialog in a book as there was here. Trying to make the reader place inflection on dialog using this device is DISTRACTING and a sign of poor storytelling. It got very annoying VERY quickly. Are you annoyed by one paragraph filled with ALL CAPS? Try a whole book and you will see what I mean.The story is filled with clichés and far-too-convenient technology. The story just happens to start with our protagonist being given a tour of a high-tech Aussie lab, which just happens to be creating the very 3 essential technologies for the later story. Surprise, surprise, we soon see them in action, including one impossibly advanced and complex tech that is installed in the 3 most advanced and complex spaceships ever built, yet this tech has never been tested. Not in any way! Our characters simply have to take it on faith that this impossibly advanced and complex propulsion system will work, and work exactly as envisioned by the scientists who created it (and again, never tested it.) It works perfectly, what a surprise.Then we have our spacefarers blindly attacking an alien race (despite the entire book being about military officers, these officers have no judgment and not even a vague semblance of military protocols) and miraculously being able to learn an alien language and reverse engineer their technology in a stunningly short period of time. A mutiny aboard a ship, where the captain effectively slaps the mutineer on the wrist so he can go on to wreak havoc. And a "love" story that seems as though it was merely an excuse to let the author craft silly prose about them having lots of sex.I have to be frank, 2 stars may be generous, but I still think the overall premise was very interesting.  That said, no way in hell I'm reading any more of this series.