Review: OK but the characters are way too stereotyped
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2012
I could delve into detail around the one-dimensional characters that abound in this novel, but it's mostly the aliens that I found really annoying.The whole "aliens just like us" theme leaves me cold, esp. where it is wrapped up in a "Human's as superior beings" because we have some Factor X that the aliens are missing, have left behind, are too scared to adopt, or whatever.I did like that Xisto was willing to kill off many, many characters though, that added some degree of tension because it was not guaranteed that if you met a character, and they seemed important, that they would not die a grisly death somewhere down the track. (Well, apart from the protagonist's of course...you can't kill off everyone, that's no fun.)In terms of plot, it was as contrived as you would expect it to be to engineer a Human mind tipping the Universe into chaos.  That said mind lacks a shred of Humanity and is as crazy as a cut snack is par for the course in sci-fi these days.So, a pretty predictable plot, some tension in who lives and who dies, and aliens that are way too forgiving with a race that just might light the fuse on Armageddon...it all adds up to a middle of the road novel that was good but not great.