Review: Needs to be Rewritten
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 27, 2013
In my opinion this book needs to be rewritten.  The author should put books 2 and 3 on hold and rewrite this book 1.  The cover is great but here are the problems:  #1.  The sentence structure is extremely poor.  I had to keep on re-reading the sentences to make sense of them, to parse them correctly.  Sentences are run-on, with commas, connecting what would normally be two sentences, with commas, gee, I hope that I don't do that, it would be very frustrating to have to continually stop and re-read every sentence, in order to figure out what the meaning was, I would get frustrated, it would be hard to read (I think you now understand).  I suspected that the author was not a native English speaker but when I went to his Amazon page I found that he appears to have at least been in the States more than long enough (if not born here) not to write run-on sentences.  And a PhD in physics too!  Which leads me to problem #2:  So the Makers have been watching us for 150 million years, guiding our history, and recently been at war with a competing race, and they need our help in that war?  Why?  What could they not accomplish with automation, robot factories, advanced technology, etc. that they would need to advance us and seek our help?  And, #3. Why would they go about it the way they do?  Doesn't make much sense to me.  David Weber's story "Mutineer's Moon" seems much more plausible and entertaining.  #4. And the plot just seems to plod from point A to B to C without any suspense or normal hiccups or dissent or anything. That's not how life usually works.  #5. As other reviewers have mentioned the story characters have no real character.  Nothing and nobody shines forth as a real person one can connect with.  It's written in a very bland statement style that does not engage the reader.  It describes what occurs in a very minimum of words, often a couple of sentences.  I think that most fiction writers would not give this one a passing grade.  I believe the writer is sincere however.  Thus my suggestion for a re-write.  More depth to the characters.  Let the readers "into" the characters.  More reality into the plot.  Much better sentence structure.  Write as you speak is OK by me.  Or hire a professional editor to learn the accepted writing style.  You've got potential.  It's just going to take a bit more work.  Please keep working on it!