Kira immediately begins to search for survivors. She has been taken and torture-interrogated by the military presently, the ship blows up, leaving her in a working shuttle. More than even this, Kira’s a good person. Kira is an active, uh, actor in the plot, decides what she will and will not do, and then goes out and does it. Kira, our heroine, loses, struggles, strives, suffers, and, ultimately, wins. It’s got a competently written, sympathetic and understandable, proactive and heroic POV lead. No, we do not get to see anybody other than Kira’s take–that there has to be an overarching unifying force in place or else humans and Wranaui Will Not Get Along–on this subject, and Kira isn’t exactly the most politically astute person in the solar system. Yes, we do see that the Wraunaui / Jellies / graspers have a distinct viewpoint that diverges from Kira’s. It’s also one of the points in which having a single narrator POV hinders the effort to show-not-tell. Actually, I don’t have much of a counterpoint to add to this one, except that this is where some of the time trimmed by killing off, say, Sparrow or Nielson, could have been added back in. It’s got alien species who are passably alien. And, large as this cast is, upping the ante on action scenes and increasing tension/pressure on the characters in-universe by letting someone actually die (not to mention the opportunity of trimming some of the dialogue), would not have hurt. Deaths or otherwise-debilitating injuries are restricted to military minor characters or civilians. While there are at least two main characters who do get badly wounded, their survival is at no point actually uncertain–even when this requires the sudden existence of otherwise-unknown abilities. Problem is, it takes several cycles and reiterations on the theme for the cast to actually settle out, and then once it has established that people can die for the sake of the plot, carefully neuters the threat by not letting it happen again, at least to any of the main characters. It also allows its characters to die or be killed. (In the case of at least one religion, it’s via a headbutt, but…) It also has a solidly-written, single-viewpoint protagonist. It’s got a diverse cast of characters, which term I use in a literal and non-derogatory sense of the word: a large chunk of the cast is female, our POV is female, planetary cultures, skin tones, and religions are present), and a certain amount of time is devoted to fleshing them out and our heroine making personal connections with them. Not even with huge changes to the pacing or with the destruction of individual scenes–I just think that a general tightening up would be an improvement. So in almost direct contradiction to my previous statements, I’m going to say: either that this book has enough story for two books, and should have been split roughly in half, right after the twisty reveal on Bughunt or that about a hundred pages should have been trimmed off of what we got instead. This book doesn’t have enough story for a series or even, God forbid, a trilogy. And, mercifully and intelligently, this book escaped the editors who would have doubtless preferred to break it into multiple pieces. If for no other reason, it’s immensely satisfying to get to an exciting action scene or a dramatic reveal and then realize that you still have two-thirds of the book, a good several hours’ more reading, to go. Some even go so far as to think that fans wouldn’t stand for such a thing. And, you know, it’s been a long, long time anybody has had the stones to write and publish a long-ass, stand-alone story in a single volume. It’s a long book: my hardback copy checks in at 825 pages, not counting about sixty-odd more of appendices and made-up vocabulary. On the whole, the fight scenes were solid, although my personal favorite was the ground fight on planet Bughunt. I’m not great at visualizing most authors’ descriptions of space battles, especially fleet-level ones, so having narrator/s talk through what’s going on, with appropriate reactions, helps me. I mean, come on, that’s sixty percent of the fun of reading about space battles! Admittedly, this one is pure personal preference. Well, except this one: it’s science fiction. I liked this book–but every point in its favor also has a counterpoint in its disfavor. First things first: I liked this book, I didn’t like Eragon that much, Paolini the teenage, homeschooled, best-selling author was nevertheless a childhood hero of mine, and I have a slight fever that might be influencing my judgment.
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