Review: Homage to the 'Doc'
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 23, 2013
Full disclosure I got this book as gift from the author after writing (since deleted) a negative review of the 2nd one in this series. It was a good gamble on his part because it changed the way I looked at the series.I now view this almost as a Doc Smith writing contest entry. And in that context it succeeds.So this is a grand space opera on the scale of the Lensman series. You have a charismatic super-smart heroine, who gets modified by alien super race. You have evil aliens who want to wipe out humanity. And you have good aliens who are willing to give us technology to stave off the attacks. Very Doc Smithy.What I liked best. The lead character is likealbe, albeit if one dimensional- hey Doc Smith's characters were too, and drives the action in a very Kim Kinnison sort of way. Brilliant and resourceful, she figures out how to adapt the alien technology in a blink of an eye.Also like the the gimmick of filling up Cat with nanites and killing her off a couple of time so she can be rebuilt. HAvent seen that much.The battle scenes are pretty well done, and dont go on too long without some dialogue thrown in.Speaking of dialogue, its decent. There are some quality exhanges between Cat and other characters.On the downside the tech descriptions are little too detailed for my taste, but other people seem to 'eat-up' space warp engines, and the physics theories behind them. The author likes it and most other reviewers seem to as well. If this is your cupotea, then you will feast in this series.SO, having accepted this as a rewrite of the Lensman series, i am going back and read the second installment. I gave up on it after a couple of pages the first time as i couldnt handle all the tech detail. WIll soldier through that, and just judge the quality of the story.Bottom-line this is a fun read for old Doc Smith fans and is well worth your time.