Review: B-
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 20, 2014
We've seen this movie before: human discover spaceship and is introduced to the galaxy at large. There are only so many permutations of this standard plot one can come up with, so the book is full of cliches. A bit too full of them imho, but I was able to ignore them for the most part.The rationales are a bit superficial and idealized, the archetypes a bit forced, the artifices used by the author are all too visible, and you can always see where he's leading the plot, so don't expect the sophisticated hidden hand that characterizes the top tier of novels.The protagonist who started as an average Joe turns out - surprise - to be a paragon of human virtues - Strength, Intelligence, luck, integrity...you name it, he has it - The love interest is basically the first female he encounters and you can see that train coming from 10 miles away... the antagonists are that particular mix of crazy and just stupid enough, that always leave me skeptical. The universe is a bit too mundane, for a civilization of a million planets ready to be exploited by our supposedly average Joe, with martial art skills that make him a superman - that last one was particularly hard to swallow. .All in all there were a lot of times when I rolled my eyes, but the story still got through. Although I wasn't able to lose myself in the story, I did not struggle to finish it. 3.5 stars really but given that it was such an easy read, and that I am motivated to buy the sequel, it deserves a 4 stars.