Review: Good Story, Terrible Ending
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 8, 2012
The book itself is one of the author's best works in terms of writing, with interesting characters, tons of action, and lots of plot development. If you've read the other books in the series you'll recognize some names and a few of the events that take place will make sense in the context of the larger story.I liked 90% of what I read. It was fast-paced, engaging, and there's an intensity that drives the story forward. It's just that the ending was so poorly thought out that you wonder if he didn't get done writing the story and then suddenly remember that he had to tie it all in with the rest of the series somehow and just duct taped something together at the last minute.Now, having read his other books, I'm used to this author's preference for having the 'hero' see the future and then choose to do nothing to change it, letting countless innocents die, and then justifying it by saying it was meant to be and they all had to be sacrificed for the greater good. Fine. I disagree, but if he's able to make a plausible case for it I'll go along. Unfortunately, in this story the main character's statement and reasoning for his actions at the end is so convoluted that you start to question his sanity.Forget that the protagonist left to train as a 'protector' in Vietnam and never saved a single native (well, except for that one person who enjoyed torturing US soldiers to death). Forget that he somehow disregards the notion of protecting people altogether in favor of solely choosing to retaliate to maintain the peace. Forget that all of his actions are determined by some mystical force that's never fully explained. Forget that he finds it easier to kill billions rather than one or two manipulative individuals (the same mistake the Stars Realm made by abandoning their galaxy to the dukes instead of fighting btw). If the author had just managed to eke out those last couple of chapters with the same degree of quality that's shown in the rest of the book I would have been okay with it. The rushed, implausible, and overall unsatisfying ending just killed it for me.So, to recap, if you want a good popcorn read where lots of things blow up and you get to see a few supermen kick ass before everything goes to hell, give this a shot. If you want the story to make some modicum of sense and not make you feel at the end as if you shouldn't have bothered paying attention to the plot, because it didn't matter in the long run anyway, maybe give this one a pass.