trike's review against another edition
1.0
Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicles is a series of stories by Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libbey, Dennis Lee and Cody Martin, all of whom were fellow players of the MMO City of Heroes, possibly my favorite game ever. (RIP CoH.)
To be honest, a lot of this reads like second-rate CoH fan fiction. It's very disjointed, with sketchily-drawn characters and it lapses into passive voice too often. In fact, it starts in that mode. For a book about an invasion of giant Nazi mechs, that's an odd choice. Some of the characters come across just like typical Mary Sues, such as the heroine who lives with her psychic cat. It's so cliche that I actually groaned aloud when I got to that section. The problem is things like that aren't subverted or played with in any way: they're just straight up look-at-me-I-wrote-a-story-about-my-cat. This goes the same for the weapon fetish dude and one other character that I have already forgotten.
Some things are just amateurish, such as when a squad of Nazi mechs beat down Kid Zero. Of all the characters introduced, Kid Zero was the only one with A) an interesting name and B) cool powers. Kid Zero can divide into two people: Kid Plus and Kid Minus. As soon as he was introduced I thought, "Finally! Someone whose name doesn't sound like a second choice in the costume creator!" (Mercurye, Belladonna Blue, Victoria Victrix, Gyrefalcon.) Cool name, interesting concept, killed two paragraphs after his introduction. Talk about a waste.
Kid Zero even has an interesting but silly death, because when they beat up one of his forms the other explodes like a miniature nuclear bomb. Now, I'm not sure why beating up Kid Minus caused Kid Plus to explode like a bomb -- seems dumb to split into two and both be twice as vulnerable. A power such as that sounds like it would've proven fatal long ago: catch one, kill both. When Mercurye... I'm sorry, that name still looks like a typo. When Mercurye flies over the crater, he calls the kid's death "an unintentional suicide bombing."
I read lines like that and I say to myself, "Did no one edit this? Did no one proofread it?" What the hell is an unintentional suicide? "Suicide" has the intent built into the word. One might say, "It looked like the aftereffects of suicide bombers but on a larger scale," but it sure wasn't an "unintentional suicide."
A few pages after that the 100-foot stone-form mutant named Mountain steps on a German Shepherd for -- apparently -- comic effect. Ha ha fuck you. Don't kill the dog, dumbasses.
There's a really good story here fighting to get out. Unfortunately, none of these writers have the superpower to allow it to escape.
To be honest, a lot of this reads like second-rate CoH fan fiction. It's very disjointed, with sketchily-drawn characters and it lapses into passive voice too often. In fact, it starts in that mode. For a book about an invasion of giant Nazi mechs, that's an odd choice. Some of the characters come across just like typical Mary Sues, such as the heroine who lives with her psychic cat. It's so cliche that I actually groaned aloud when I got to that section. The problem is things like that aren't subverted or played with in any way: they're just straight up look-at-me-I-wrote-a-story-about-my-cat. This goes the same for the weapon fetish dude and one other character that I have already forgotten.
Some things are just amateurish, such as when a squad of Nazi mechs beat down Kid Zero. Of all the characters introduced, Kid Zero was the only one with A) an interesting name and B) cool powers. Kid Zero can divide into two people: Kid Plus and Kid Minus. As soon as he was introduced I thought, "Finally! Someone whose name doesn't sound like a second choice in the costume creator!" (Mercurye, Belladonna Blue, Victoria Victrix, Gyrefalcon.) Cool name, interesting concept, killed two paragraphs after his introduction. Talk about a waste.
Kid Zero even has an interesting but silly death, because when they beat up one of his forms the other explodes like a miniature nuclear bomb. Now, I'm not sure why beating up Kid Minus caused Kid Plus to explode like a bomb -- seems dumb to split into two and both be twice as vulnerable. A power such as that sounds like it would've proven fatal long ago: catch one, kill both. When Mercurye... I'm sorry, that name still looks like a typo. When Mercurye flies over the crater, he calls the kid's death "an unintentional suicide bombing."
I read lines like that and I say to myself, "Did no one edit this? Did no one proofread it?" What the hell is an unintentional suicide? "Suicide" has the intent built into the word. One might say, "It looked like the aftereffects of suicide bombers but on a larger scale," but it sure wasn't an "unintentional suicide."
A few pages after that the 100-foot stone-form mutant named Mountain steps on a German Shepherd for -- apparently -- comic effect. Ha ha fuck you. Don't kill the dog, dumbasses.
There's a really good story here fighting to get out. Unfortunately, none of these writers have the superpower to allow it to escape.
kejadlen's review against another edition
1.0
Got about a third of the way through before I gave up. Read like bad fanfiction.
tommythe13th's review
4.0
Mercedes Lackey and friends tackle the super-hero genre and podcasting simultaneously with a great connection to World War II like traditional comic books. Outstanding voice work from Veronica Giguere, great characters and stories from all the contributors.
hornyforbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Filled with pulpy goodness and superhero characters, a fun read.
notesurfer's review against another edition
Hyper-literal names, cumbersome premise, and lots of run on sentences.
serena_dawn's review against another edition
3.0
Some might get confused with where to begin - this series started out as a podcast. For me that is a media I have never really gotten into. So there are "books " which are audio read -and they do not at all match the two printed works BAEN has put out. I have compared them - if you expect them to match up you are going to be dissapointed.
So this is my review of the book independent of the podcast.
It focuses on John Murdock, Belladonna Blue, Vicky, "Eisenfaust ", Red Djinni, Ramona and Red Saviour - all the book is supposed to be put together by Vicky at the beginning in about two hours.
It is put together so sloppily I believe it might be a refection of the reality.
Now I most certainly am predetermined to dislike a book that does not have a narrow focus of charactors. You get a look at everyone in that list and a few more who are less interesting and some more remarkable.
Here is a alien invasion with the theme of Nazi, there are metahumans (and that I could get behind) ...only there are angels....and there are Voudan....and a tech-shaman Tuatha da Danaan "sorceress "...and I just want to point out that there is a four armed 'goddess ' Shahkti - they got that right but didn't bother to check and make sure Shiva was not Kali at the end?
Look any sort of author who puts in gods and goddesses of a different religion - ancient or not - needs to put in a little reasearch or they come across looking like a idiot. Congrats calling a male Hindu god a goddess does that- a lot. "Shiva is both a creator and a destroyer. When 'she ' dances, there's no telling which way the dance will turn." -there isn't really a need to throw Shiva into a conversation between Americans and Russians.
Also the Voudan - of course - is misrepresented utterly. Typical.
Bocor are power hungry and call evil "djabs ": houngan are good priests of loas. Yeah...no.
So the theme here?
I had high hopes for this sort of book but the mix -mash ruined it at the end. If I am this annoyed with the "little things " I am not paying attention to the big thing - the story.
So this is my review of the book independent of the podcast.
It focuses on John Murdock, Belladonna Blue, Vicky, "Eisenfaust ", Red Djinni, Ramona and Red Saviour - all the book is supposed to be put together by Vicky at the beginning in about two hours.
It is put together so sloppily I believe it might be a refection of the reality.
Now I most certainly am predetermined to dislike a book that does not have a narrow focus of charactors. You get a look at everyone in that list and a few more who are less interesting and some more remarkable.
Here is a alien invasion with the theme of Nazi, there are metahumans (and that I could get behind) ...only there are angels....and there are Voudan....and a tech-shaman Tuatha da Danaan "sorceress "...and I just want to point out that there is a four armed 'goddess ' Shahkti - they got that right but didn't bother to check and make sure Shiva was not Kali at the end?
Look any sort of author who puts in gods and goddesses of a different religion - ancient or not - needs to put in a little reasearch or they come across looking like a idiot. Congrats calling a male Hindu god a goddess does that- a lot. "Shiva is both a creator and a destroyer. When 'she ' dances, there's no telling which way the dance will turn." -there isn't really a need to throw Shiva into a conversation between Americans and Russians.
Also the Voudan - of course - is misrepresented utterly. Typical.
Bocor are power hungry and call evil "djabs ": houngan are good priests of loas. Yeah...no.
So the theme here?
I had high hopes for this sort of book but the mix -mash ruined it at the end. If I am this annoyed with the "little things " I am not paying attention to the big thing - the story.
ethernz's review
3.0
Weird book. First half is ace. Space nazis, meta-humans, Tesla, Russians, angels, loads of fun. Then it loses its way. Suddenly you jump into a whole other story that's completely unconnected but is presented as just another section. It's not a bad story but I have no idea why it's there. Then you come back to the original universe only to find a significant portion of time has past an important character is dead (barely mentioned in passing) but apart from that the story hasn't progressed at all. I'm really not sure if I want to read part two or not.
arachne_reads's review against another edition
1.0
I have never read dialogue so boring in all my life. All the characters read like cardboard cut-outs. This was painful to read, but keep in mind, my tolerance for bad is pretty low.
skolastic's review against another edition
1.0
I got this through a Humble Bundle ages ago. Truly dire, not doing 1200 pages of this.
mondak's review against another edition
3.0
I'll keep this short a sweet.
A good writer wrote a good book. It was not great. It was not particularly thought provoking. It was good.
I will say that Mercedes Lackey does something very well that other authors could really learn from. She does a great job of giving you enough about a character to keep you invested in them, without disclosing too much so that you are not still intrigued. I found that fun over and over when reading Invasion.
A good writer wrote a good book. It was not great. It was not particularly thought provoking. It was good.
I will say that Mercedes Lackey does something very well that other authors could really learn from. She does a great job of giving you enough about a character to keep you invested in them, without disclosing too much so that you are not still intrigued. I found that fun over and over when reading Invasion.