Review: A novel for engineers not for English majors
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 21, 2013
The Republic, battered by war, has fallen into scattered worlds and space habitats struggling, and failing, to survive.  The engineers were killed in the war and civilization lost its ability to not only create new technology, but to even maintain the technology it had.  The main character is an engineer, a cyborg with all the empires technology incorporated into his body.  He has been in stasis for 700 hundred years after his ship was destroyed.  His stasis capsule is found by a tramp freighter and when he revives, he proceeds to rebuild everything he touches.If the human race had no engineering gene, we would still be rolling over logs looking for grubs.  Doctors would be shaking rattles over the sick to drive out evil spirits.  Lawyers would be arguing over the appropriate distribution of grubs.  And English teachers would be critiquing the log rollers on the proper etiquette for log rolling.This book should appeal to anyone with even a speck of the engineering gene, though the editing would give an English teacher a heart attack.  I downloaded this novel and enjoyed it so much that over the next month I proceeded to read everything the author has published.  The author wrote that it takes him more time to edit a book than it does to write it, and I really don't want him to slow down his writing.  Perhaps he would like to enlist the readers to help him with the editing?  Just a thought, Baen does it.  Ok, something did bug me about the novel.  We are currently integrating the GPU and RAM functions into the CPU and the military is using redundant arrays of processors for the OFP.  Why would a nanotechnology civilization replace the GPU and RAM separately?  Here are a few similar book:  "Swiss Family Robinson, Invaders From The Infinite, Anton York Immortal, The Skylark Of Space, Junkyard Planet, Ruined City, Live Free Or Die and The Crosstime Engineer."