Review: Very Well Done.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 16, 2013
Lots of good things going on in this novel.First up for those that really get distracted by such things rest assured that the writing/editing/grammar and so on were all well above the normal e-book published standard, nothing really caught my eye as a problem.Second the characterisation and interaction on the whole was excellent, with the large cast all having distinct voices and the main characters managing to be at the very least likeable and in many cases interesting, Heskan our protagonist even had some depth to him.Third we have a very nice story that despite having the rough shape of a commonly used plot-line for sci/fi space navy military fiction managed to pleasantly surprise me by avoiding many of the overused clichés and to entertain.Fourth we have the universe building/science and it was good indeed the communications, weapons, sensors and exotics like energy shields and inertia/gravity technology and the FTL system were all internally consistent, had some thought put into them and consequences. The political make up was a bit bare bones but what was needed to tell the story was at least explained in passing.Fifth we have the battles and they to were very good IMHO almost anything I can say would be a spoiler but the way ship to ship fighting is handled in "This Corner of the Universe" was a real highlight and pretty darn brutal and realistic as well.All in all a very enjoyable first book and I'm eagerly awaiting more from this author and more from this series.Unfortunately its not all good news and I did find a few areas where improvements could have smoothed the ride immensely.First and most annoying were the POV changes between characters. For the first few chapters there are none, we see everything riding behind Heskan's eyes, and then suddenly we start skipping from one character to next with no warning, often transitioned via the odd vehicle of a info dump! We'll be with Heskan, he'll start thinking about some odd bit of technology and helpfully explaining it in his mind and by the time the explanation is finished and action picks up we are with the Weapons Officer! More than a few times I went for several lines or a paragraph or two without realizing I was now following different characters in a different part of the ship! Very jarring.Second some of the character interactions rang hollow at least for me; especially how quickly Heskan assimilated into the crew and how tightly they all bonded in such a short time. They all came across as a little to nice and little too tight nit for the amount of time they spent together.And that's about it for my two cents.