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itabar's review against another edition
2.0
A pleasant enough read, but it moved too slowly for me. Every single book talks about the cautious approach Boss takes to her dives, and it takes up pages and pages and pages. Every. Time. She. Dives.
tpietila's review against another edition
4.0
The next part in the Diving Universe series. This part continues pretty much from where the former ended while there are some chapters which are flashbacks to earlier books which are now presented from another point of view. For example, we learn what happened at the Room of Lost Souls. It wasn’t as straightforward an operation as Captain Jonathon “Coop” Cooper - who was flung from the past in a working Dignity Vessel (which paradoxically is by far the most “modern” and powerful warship ever seen by any living person) - was led to believe. The “Boss”, the heroine of the earlier parts is starting to study the “graveyard”, a location in the space filled with shipwrecks, and which is protected by a forcefield. And the Empire who lost its main research base in a raid organized by “Coop” and the “Boss” is not going to stand quietly by when their “cloaking” experiments are destroyed. A very exciting book that was fast and fun to read, and it was very easy to follow in spite of several viewpoint characters and several timelines it tracked. It is a vastly better book than the plot synopsis (which sounds slightly “pulpish”) with well described and believable characters and enjoyable writing. I already purchased the next part.
scamp1234's review against another edition
4.0
I read this after I had read Boneyard and the Strangers at the Room of Lost Souls and I believe that was the best order to do so. This puts so much more information together that makes the Diving Universe an even bigger deal than it is.
lushr's review against another edition
4.0
really enjoyed this story with lots of action in two different parts of the universe. the style of writing where alternating chapters follow different plots can be really jarring, you have to remind yourself where the characters were. i’m not sure why so many writers use this device. it certainly slows me down as i think “oh, just hen it was getting interesting now i have to care about someone else, some place else”... and i put the book down for another few days.
thaxllssillyia's review against another edition
4.0
A solid installment in the Diving Universe series that provides a few answers and adds a lot more questions to the ongoing mysterie of the Fleet.
What I like most about Skirmishes is that it introduces a point of view character from the Enterran Empire which turns it into an actual nuanced entity filled with real, living people rather than just the faceless "evil empire" trope it appeared as before.
What I like most about Skirmishes is that it introduces a point of view character from the Enterran Empire which turns it into an actual nuanced entity filled with real, living people rather than just the faceless "evil empire" trope it appeared as before.
nachof's review against another edition
4.0
Rusch is a good writer, and even though the Diving Universe series is very light as far as science fiction goes, it's still a very enjoyable read.
That being said, it feels like the most the series progresses, the less each book feels like a complete story and the more it feels like just a part of a larger book that was split for commercial reasons. The fact that the books are short and can be read in just a few days doesn't help. The story is entertaining, it's well written, but it also feels incomplete. You get to the end and it feels like it needs more. Like two hundred pages more. And I'm sure there will be a new book soon, which will have the same issue.
In any case, there's a huge improvement I noticed in this book. Previous books had left me with the impression that I was to assume that the Empire is evil just because I'm told, just because they're an Empire, and, in a way, just because they're a government. Even though various small episodes in previous books showed them to be rather benign as far as empires go, Boss, or heroine and main character, kept insisting they were evil at every opportunity, and that view was never challenged. With this book we get that challenge in the form of Coop's opinions, who rightly notes that they're just a normal expansionist regional power, and not the embodiment of evil previous books made them out to be, in description if not in deeds. We also get the point of view of an Empire military commander, in what's probably the best part of the book. She has had people under her command killed by the main protagonists, and see them as terrorists. And reading those free chapters where we get to see Coop's actions through her eyes, here does look kind of bad himself.
Anyway, good addition to the series. I just wish it were more of a complete story.
That being said, it feels like the most the series progresses, the less each book feels like a complete story and the more it feels like just a part of a larger book that was split for commercial reasons. The fact that the books are short and can be read in just a few days doesn't help. The story is entertaining, it's well written, but it also feels incomplete. You get to the end and it feels like it needs more. Like two hundred pages more. And I'm sure there will be a new book soon, which will have the same issue.
In any case, there's a huge improvement I noticed in this book. Previous books had left me with the impression that I was to assume that the Empire is evil just because I'm told, just because they're an Empire, and, in a way, just because they're a government. Even though various small episodes in previous books showed them to be rather benign as far as empires go, Boss, or heroine and main character, kept insisting they were evil at every opportunity, and that view was never challenged. With this book we get that challenge in the form of Coop's opinions, who rightly notes that they're just a normal expansionist regional power, and not the embodiment of evil previous books made them out to be, in description if not in deeds. We also get the point of view of an Empire military commander, in what's probably the best part of the book. She has had people under her command killed by the main protagonists, and see them as terrorists. And reading those free chapters where we get to see Coop's actions through her eyes, here does look kind of bad himself.
Anyway, good addition to the series. I just wish it were more of a complete story.
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