Review: Not great...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 11, 2012
I would probably give this 3.5 stars if that was possible, but because Saxon is a writer I enjoy reading (most of the time) I'll round it up.If trying to sum this book up in a single phrase I would have to say it's a ham-handed effort. This series, and this book especially, was utterly devoid of subtlety or nuance. The characters came off flat and the the romantic subplots were sophomoric, at best. The book seemed like an endless series of: [insert generic, beautiful super genius A] has a simplistic solution to a problem. [insert generic, beautiful super genius B] is overly impressed and then falls in love. RV then instantly promotes them both to Admiral and then they fly off in their own love-battleship to mangle cheesy romantic dialogue cliches and kill color-coded aliens together. After the 4th loop of this I was actually rolling my eyes as I pushed on to the finish. But beyond that, it didn't really add anything to the story. It was more just a continual distraction... for example: the rescue of Dolly, which should have been a pivotal point of the story, was interrupted with the puerile interaction with Phil about how "he'll find someone someday" as he pines for someone he's never met like a lovesick teenager... all this in the middle of a time travel rescue in which they must outrun a nuclear blast. The ridiculousness of the conversation completely robbed the rescue scene of its drama and suspense.Space opera at its heart is the theater of the absurd, that's what makes it fun; it's pure escapism. With that in mind I like that Saxon doesn't weigh the story down with endless technical descriptions or lengthy lectures on physics, but the character interactions (and not just what I described above) make the series a tough read at times. While I may seem overly critical of this book it's probably I'll continue reading the series. In the future I would like to see a little more character development and maybe a less disjointed story, but overall this was a fun read.