midnightgarden's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, and Genocide
winterscomin's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Series seems to be dragging a little at this point, with so many different characters & sub-plots, but I presume at least some of them will start finding end points?
thearbiter89's review against another edition
3.0
(Extracted from 2005 blog post)
A mere continuation of Kevin J Anderson’s style and plot development. Roamers are marginalized. Hansa is demonized. Peter is glorified. Theron is rasterized. Jess Tamblyn is transformed into a motif of Wental power. Klikiss robots continue to lug DD around everywhere. Robb Brindle is not dead! Beneto (in a move of dubious wisdom and tact) is resurrected. As a golem. Kevin, why? Why?
As always, Anderson continues in his distinctive writing style, which is rather irritating in the way that each sentence always ends of with an unnecessary expansion, or interjected by extraneous outgrowths. Transmuted to a tape recorder, Anderson can be said to ramble. The sheer superfluidity of his prose and the resulting awkwardness in his structuring cause a sort of empty feeling in the reader.
Maybe a small part of the issue can be explained by the fact that that’s exactly what Anderson does. He goes off on treks in the mountains, alone, carrying a tape recorder, and rambles storylines into it while he walks.
The phenomenon becomes doubly bad when it comes to passages describing tragedy. The rambling profuseness of his dialogue and the painful lengths that the prose goes in stating tragic events again and again, without any attempt at masking it with poetic window-dressing, coupled with the insufficient graphicity of the said tragedies, turns the tragedy so-called into an unwitting farce that has no emotional impact on the reader. Anderson would have done well with clipped, brusque statements and broken, incomplete sentences, arranged in artfully exquisite fashion to compound agony for agony, graphic detail for graphic detail, instead of the superfluous and precariously arranged prose with not a dose of poetic drapery.
Anderson also likes separating sentences with commas, bringing out their meaning, thinking that this gives a surreal atmosphere, a veritable life, to his sentences, and ending them by trailing off…
Because of this writing style, characters like Celli, Nira, and many Therocs come across as naive and innocent. And the corresponding dialogue is embarrassingly stilted (because it, too, contains elements of extraneity).
“Embarrassed by their gratitide, her newly green skin flushed dark. Nira said, “I’m glad I could do one last thing to help my family before I embark on my great adventure.” Or, “His shoulders slumped. “That is who we are, though sometimes it is a difficult thing.””
Those two were extracts from Hidden Empire, where the effects of this style were most pronounced. Thankfully, its less apparent in the following novels.
Anderson’s plotting, world-creation and sheer ambition overcome this predilection. Three books already and Anderson’s saga spans epic proportions and has a sense of primal scale. The aliens, modelled after the Elements, are purveyors of an ancient conflict which has destroyed worlds. For a space opera, Anderson has been successful in portraying the historical depth of the Saga of Seven Suns world. This world is carefully crafted, and conceived as a very plausible future scenario with realistic enough economic and political undercurrents. Anderson has a proclivity for making Deus Ex Machinas that work. Faeros at Theroc, for example. And he is not afraid to let his characters die, even if some of them do come back afterward. Like they do in Horizon Storms, much to my chagrin. His plot is a complex tapestry of survival, betrayal, love, and danger, set in a brilliantly realized universe that seethes with new concepts.
If only he could improve that writing style of his, that has plagued all his works, he would truly shine.
A mere continuation of Kevin J Anderson’s style and plot development. Roamers are marginalized. Hansa is demonized. Peter is glorified. Theron is rasterized. Jess Tamblyn is transformed into a motif of Wental power. Klikiss robots continue to lug DD around everywhere. Robb Brindle is not dead! Beneto (in a move of dubious wisdom and tact) is resurrected. As a golem. Kevin, why? Why?
As always, Anderson continues in his distinctive writing style, which is rather irritating in the way that each sentence always ends of with an unnecessary expansion, or interjected by extraneous outgrowths. Transmuted to a tape recorder, Anderson can be said to ramble. The sheer superfluidity of his prose and the resulting awkwardness in his structuring cause a sort of empty feeling in the reader.
Maybe a small part of the issue can be explained by the fact that that’s exactly what Anderson does. He goes off on treks in the mountains, alone, carrying a tape recorder, and rambles storylines into it while he walks.
The phenomenon becomes doubly bad when it comes to passages describing tragedy. The rambling profuseness of his dialogue and the painful lengths that the prose goes in stating tragic events again and again, without any attempt at masking it with poetic window-dressing, coupled with the insufficient graphicity of the said tragedies, turns the tragedy so-called into an unwitting farce that has no emotional impact on the reader. Anderson would have done well with clipped, brusque statements and broken, incomplete sentences, arranged in artfully exquisite fashion to compound agony for agony, graphic detail for graphic detail, instead of the superfluous and precariously arranged prose with not a dose of poetic drapery.
Anderson also likes separating sentences with commas, bringing out their meaning, thinking that this gives a surreal atmosphere, a veritable life, to his sentences, and ending them by trailing off…
Because of this writing style, characters like Celli, Nira, and many Therocs come across as naive and innocent. And the corresponding dialogue is embarrassingly stilted (because it, too, contains elements of extraneity).
“Embarrassed by their gratitide, her newly green skin flushed dark. Nira said, “I’m glad I could do one last thing to help my family before I embark on my great adventure.” Or, “His shoulders slumped. “That is who we are, though sometimes it is a difficult thing.””
Those two were extracts from Hidden Empire, where the effects of this style were most pronounced. Thankfully, its less apparent in the following novels.
Anderson’s plotting, world-creation and sheer ambition overcome this predilection. Three books already and Anderson’s saga spans epic proportions and has a sense of primal scale. The aliens, modelled after the Elements, are purveyors of an ancient conflict which has destroyed worlds. For a space opera, Anderson has been successful in portraying the historical depth of the Saga of Seven Suns world. This world is carefully crafted, and conceived as a very plausible future scenario with realistic enough economic and political undercurrents. Anderson has a proclivity for making Deus Ex Machinas that work. Faeros at Theroc, for example. And he is not afraid to let his characters die, even if some of them do come back afterward. Like they do in Horizon Storms, much to my chagrin. His plot is a complex tapestry of survival, betrayal, love, and danger, set in a brilliantly realized universe that seethes with new concepts.
If only he could improve that writing style of his, that has plagued all his works, he would truly shine.
galax003's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: War, Death, Murder, Blood, Death of parent, Drug use, and Fatphobia
waden34's review against another edition
4.0
Finally the series takes off. There is palpable tension in this book. There are now people to loathe instead of just amorphous blobs. The only thing I didn't like was that there are people that were presumed dead that are brought back to life. This ruins the emotional value that their deaths originally had on me.
slapshottechnology's review against another edition
4.0
Another good, quick read. Enjoyable plot twists, although more of them, like J'orah's brother going rogue was kind of predictable. Excited to see if the humans can replicate the Hydrogue ships, see the connection between the Klikiss and Hyrdogue trapezoid transport systems, and the new wooden people.
slapshottechnology's review
3.0
Maybe just the times, but this depressed me more than the first time I read it. I knew what was coming (Hyrillka's treachery, the Klikiss robots, etc.) and it just bummed me out. I am hoping to get to some positives quickly as we move to the next book.
talamak's review against another edition
3.0
The story kept me hooked but by the end of it I felt like not a whole lot had happened. There are so many plotlines and point of view characters that although some significant events occurred, overall it feels like this book was just moving the plot along and setting up for bigger things later on.
The plot itself is amazing as always. The characters are good, though with some of the minor characters we get information unnecessary to the plot and unnecessary to the character's development. For one character in particular, Anderson regularly revisits his past despite it having little to no relevance to how he behaves and reacts to things - this character is introduced and killed off in this book, making me think the author only included the past and referenced it so often in order to flesh out the chapters (unnecessarily).
Even though this book was captivating enough for me to finish in a matter of days, I feel that my interest came from my desire to solve the mysteries of the first two books; on its own merits this book isn't great (not bad by any stretch though!).
The plot itself is amazing as always. The characters are good, though with some of the minor characters we get information unnecessary to the plot and unnecessary to the character's development. For one character in particular, Anderson regularly revisits his past despite it having little to no relevance to how he behaves and reacts to things - this character is introduced and killed off in this book, making me think the author only included the past and referenced it so often in order to flesh out the chapters (unnecessarily).
Even though this book was captivating enough for me to finish in a matter of days, I feel that my interest came from my desire to solve the mysteries of the first two books; on its own merits this book isn't great (not bad by any stretch though!).