Review: How many ships does it take to reach the stars??
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 3, 2013
I really enjoyed book 1, but there are several problems I have with the 2nd installment. First, the battles became a little repetitive.  Reese goes through ship after ship!  You know as soon as she is assigned to a ship 1) lots of people are going to die; and 2) the ship will sustain such heavy damage from missible that it will turn into space junk by the end of every battle.  The author went tooooo far into the technical aspects of warfare -- I loved it in the 1st book but it became over used in the 2nd book.  It also seemed like the author took the whole idea of "Battleship" (the game..not the movie) and wanted to show us how useless fighting in space was.  It seemed to me that the ships shot blindly and hoped they made contact.  At one point, I threw down the book and said, "Hello? These ships can 'skip" so why don't they dodge the missiles by 'skipping' if they know they are incoming?"  I am not military, nor am I an avid gamer, but I find it hard to stomach that every battle would result in over 200 loss lives and it made the whole idea of fighting pointless -- and how is it these specially trained Navy and Army officers couldn't always kick butt when going up against untrained raiders? The only thing I took from repeated losses is that you don't have an edge in battle if you attended TWO military academies -- living life as part of an untrained clan is enough -- you are only as good as your battle cruiser.Second, the author continues to glance over Reese's personal relationships.  Aside from her friendship with the alien Thalia and a Scorpion, we don't really get a chance to explore other relationships.  Reese's first "true love" pops up again, but we don't get to see how these two interact.  How does this guy feel about being with 2 people in one body?  How does Thalia feel about sex with a human?  How does Thalia feel about Reese every becoming a mother? These are all questions that the author could have tastefully answered.  Instead, the author seemed to avoid this subject like the plague -- except for when he wanted to discuss the raiders raping captured women.  This, of course, shows the author's gender and how far he is willing to go to really make a story of war and acceptance gel.Third, the author fails to make me believe the Riss don't have egos.  If they didn't, why would Thalia repeatedly remind Reese that she was "high" Riss?  We know there are two other levels of Riss -- low and middle Riss.  Wouldn't an ego deficient alien species simply refer to all Riss as Riss? If this is not about ego, then it shows a clear hierarchy -- despite what the author wants us to believe.I continue to love the story line despite the continued flaws I see in it. I don't know if this series is done, but I would welcome another book.