Review: Huh?
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 18, 2013
This book has a very interesting premise and fleshes out enough of a galactic history to make that premise realistic. The protagonist is a whinny snot nosed *donkey*. This is one of the few protagonists in books that I love to HATE. Supposedly, the character is in his late 20s but acts more like he is in his late teens to at the very very very best 21. The repartee between characters is amusing and entertaining but is overly done.The book also has structural flaws. The primary being that it is VERY disjointed with whole chapters being  almost absolutely useless to the main plot line and a blatant attempt at character building for the protagonist. The chapters are "dream sequences" that actually make the protagonist less likeable, hence my dislike of said character, and break up the rhythm of the book.A secondary flaw is that there is a great deal of innuendo about the past (Before Christ) interactions of the alien empires with Earth civilizations and how the representatives of those civilizations were considered to be gods. This alone wouldn't be a bad thing but the questions are asked many different times in the book with absolutely NO resolution just innuendo. This, unfortunately, leaves a great gaping hole in the book begging to be addressed. It appears to be the preliminary work for another longer plot line but is hammered to hard to be left hanging as it was.The last structural flaw were the pre-chapter "introductions" which were unnecessary; occasionally totally distracting to the plot line; and conflicting with the timeline of the book. The time conflicts were heavy handed foreshadowing.The first two thirds of the book were engaging, including the first, but not subsequent, dream sequence. The last third of the book is where the author lost my attention and I started jumping paragraphs and chapters (dream sequence chapters). By the end of the book, I was left with more questions than had been answered. Unfortunately, one of the questions that was left unanswered was whether or not this was a one-off or has possible sequels. This is how things are in real life but in reading a book, I really prefer to have some kind of closure even if it is to say that more could be written but probably won't.If you're looking to waste some time for a discount price and don't mind the issues I have with the book, it would be a decent but not overly exciting read.