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pjonsson's review
5.0
This is the 6th book in the Starfire series and the second one not written by David Weber. I found this to be a very good book with only a few negative points which makes it not quite reach a 10 out of 10 rating although that is barely. The book follows from the previous book, Exodus, fairly seamlessly. We get to follow the story from the viewpoint essentially of three different parties, the human fleet trying to push the aliens back, the humans trapped on the main occupied planet and their resistance and finally the aliens (Arduans) themselves. Each of these viewpoints are presented in quite a bit of detail and are almost small novels in their own right. As you might deduce from this the book is not one of the smaller novels around and weighs in at over 600 pages.
Speaking of detail, here the book is almost “Weberesque” in that it sometimes digs itself down in a lot of talk, talk, talk. The talking and philosophizing, especially concerning religious matters, is especially heavy when the book enters the aliens viewpoint. To me this is one of the few negative points of the book. It slows down the book and, for me, it does not really add much of value.
However, there is plenty of good value in this book that makes up for that minor negative point. The slow and painful advance of the human fleet, the planning, tactics and the fleet battles in this book is also almost “Weberesque” and this time this is a good thing. This is interleaved by the guerilla activities by the humans on the occupied planet. These parts of the book are also very good. Unfortunately there is a silly court martial in the middle of things that, to me, is the second negative thing with the book. For me that part was “get it over and done with please” pages. However, this was also a minor negative point and it was reasonably quickly over and done with.
The alien viewpoint was also quite well written and indeed interesting to read even though you, or at least I, felt that I wanted to quickly skip through the parts that dug itself down in religious philosophizing. I do not think it is much of a spoiler to say that the book ends with the humans and the aliens finally deciding to actually talk to each other before one of them are exterminated.
Peace? Well, yes…for now. The book does end with a satisfactory conclusion as far as I am concerned but, at the same time, it certainly leaves the door open for future episodes in this saga.
Bottom line: A very enjoyable book.
Speaking of detail, here the book is almost “Weberesque” in that it sometimes digs itself down in a lot of talk, talk, talk. The talking and philosophizing, especially concerning religious matters, is especially heavy when the book enters the aliens viewpoint. To me this is one of the few negative points of the book. It slows down the book and, for me, it does not really add much of value.
However, there is plenty of good value in this book that makes up for that minor negative point. The slow and painful advance of the human fleet, the planning, tactics and the fleet battles in this book is also almost “Weberesque” and this time this is a good thing. This is interleaved by the guerilla activities by the humans on the occupied planet. These parts of the book are also very good. Unfortunately there is a silly court martial in the middle of things that, to me, is the second negative thing with the book. For me that part was “get it over and done with please” pages. However, this was also a minor negative point and it was reasonably quickly over and done with.
The alien viewpoint was also quite well written and indeed interesting to read even though you, or at least I, felt that I wanted to quickly skip through the parts that dug itself down in religious philosophizing. I do not think it is much of a spoiler to say that the book ends with the humans and the aliens finally deciding to actually talk to each other before one of them are exterminated.
Peace? Well, yes…for now. The book does end with a satisfactory conclusion as far as I am concerned but, at the same time, it certainly leaves the door open for future episodes in this saga.
Bottom line: A very enjoyable book.
tomwklose's review against another edition
5.0
A very satisfying part of the saga in this long series. New war heroes emerge and old ones are brought back to life and the legends they had to live up to. I do enjoy the space battles and the intrigue of the various factions of 'baldies' as they work to stop the war in the rim federation of space.
alesia_charles's review against another edition
4.0
Another library book – military SF, this time. I think I may have read one of the earlier books in this “Starfire” series; at least, the life circumstances of one of the human characters seem familiar. At any rate, the novel revolves around the conflict between alien refugees (their star went nova) and the humans who already colonized the plant they’ve arrived at. Communication between the two is hampered by the fact that the aliens have an empathic/telepathic form of communication rather than a verbal one, and interstellar war is the result. There is some good character work going on here, particularly with the aliens; the parallels between the two sides’ political situation are perhaps a little too obvious, but didn’t break it for me. And there were some really good space battles, triumph and heroism, that sort of thing. Not bad work at all.
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