Review: Nice second book, but a couple caveats.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 19, 2013
I'm going to give this three stars as an independently published work. I like the author's writing style, and overall I think that the characterization is reasonable. The main characters are well fleshed enough to be interesting, which I suppose is really all you need to satisfy many readers. I would have likely gone for four stars, but the ending was just a bit too much to stomach.edit: I just wanted to make a quick comment on the sex scenes, since some readers seemed so bothered by them... yes, there were a couple, and yes, they were somewhat graphic. That said, there are MUCH worse in published works on national bestseller lists. Also, the scenes in this book are what I would call "weekday sex". Nothing particularly deviant or unusual, basically. Pretty standard stuff IMO. If anyone finds these scenes racy, or "too much", then I really feel quite badly for them. They are quite vanilla IMO, especially compared to some of the literature that is popular today. To the author, I think a short warning in the description is about the only fix required in that aspect. That way, the people who are offended by this type of thing can easily move on to other works.***POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT***Every avid sci-fi fan has long become comfortable with the need to suspend disbelief at certain points in a story. There were plenty of areas in this book that required this very ability, but none so much as the ending. Basically, the ending was so completely unbelievable, that I just couldn't find it in myself to completely suspend my disbelief, as I was able to successfully do so many times before in the "Rambo" type scenes (which, comically, is even lightly alluded to in the book).*** DEFINITE SPOILER ALERT***In the last pages of the novel you have the recently reunited father and daughter, about to address the senate regarding the father's unexpected return. It was mentioned directly, at least once, as well as indirectly, that much of the senate was likely to be murderously hostile to the former emperor. So, what happens? The main character (sworn to protect the two) and his posse (knowingly) march father and daughter right in front of a heavily armed room with (as stated before) murderous intent towards the father, where one (or both) appear to have been shot (again? ugh.), which ends the novel. I get that a cliffhanger is supposed to grab you, to make you angry and/or sad and/or happy, and get you interested in reading further, but this one, just really, really irritated me.Firstly, there's no way that any real "protector" would have let them enter the chamber in the first place, knowing the security risk contained within. Secondly, in a universe where the "protector" has an office which consists of three walls and a force field that is bordered by open space, you'd think that it wouldn't be too hard to put *something* up in front of the darned podium, so that unruly (and known to be well armed) members of the senate couldn't just take random pot shots at whoever was speaking there. I mean, come on, really? Not even a piece of plexi? Heck, even mounting a brightly colored spinning barber pole on the side of the podium for distraction factor would have been at least *something*.Here we have Mr. Super-mega-elite protector guy, who just finished saving these two, and then knowingly marches them into a freaking shooting gallery with no protection other than a few guys standing around looking tough whilst holding large guns? Sorry, I just don't buy it. I can buy into the crazy space battles, I can buy into the Hollywood fight scenes, I can buy all sorts of crazy stuff in sci-fi novels, but this just doesn't make a single, solitary bit of sense to me.Maybe I'm being too critical here, but it was just too much for me personally. It is just SO out of character, and completely goes against everything the main character in the series is represented to be... even if he is tired, distracted, and complacent due to the resolution of recent events.I may even wait on reviews for the final novel before purchasing. If the characters do any more silly stuff like this, I simply won't have any further interest in the story... my ability to suspend disbelief will be irrevocably broken, and I will not be able to read any further.