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sagauthor's review against another edition
5.0
Have finished my third rereading of this book. This book and its sequel impressed me with the worldbuilding of the alien races. The story has at least three elements going for it. It has conflict between space faring races, strange but interesting cultural traits and habits of the races, and characters that I was intersted in. I was especially interested in Caitlin and Tully, and the minor houses of Jao. The authors introduce a great deal about the relationships of power and decisionmaking in the different cultures. I could see a school class spending a full semester using this book to explore alternative political power relations. The Ekhat would be the simplest. I really wanted to know what would happen to each character. Even minor characters are introduced with interesting stories.
The relationship between the Jao and the humans of Earth is complicated. It may be a path from hate to love over the history of the relationship. Fear, distrust, trust and promise are building the relationship and guide the decisions made by the members of the Jao and humans, as they prepare to fight the Ekhat. The relationship between humans and the Jao culture is fraught with tension and the potential for misunderstanding. There are many terms to explain the cultural differences the races have, but I found them easy to follow because of the good writing.
The world building is very impressive. There are three fully sentient races described in the story, the Humans, Jao, and Ekhat. Each has its strengths, weaknesses, oddities and traditions. I kept thinking that this reminds me of humans. The same 4 points could be made about me and all the people I know. This is a great way to relate the strange alien races to my own life and understanding.
The greatest tension in the book, after the difficulty of the different races communicating successfully across their barriers of difference is the looming threat of the Ekhat battle ships that will destroy anyone they encounter that are not Ekhat. This dangerous thread impacts every other storyline throughout the book, while not distracting from the interesting stories being told. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy military sci-fi or cross-cultural fiction.
I was intrigued by the faster than light technology used in the series. The frame point network is a unique addition to faster-than-light travel in science fiction and might possibly end up having some similarity to an actual technological solution to ftl, if humans ever achieve that.
When I finished the sequel I was ready to plunge into the next step in the story. Alas, I learned K. D. Wentworth died in 2012 and the third book in the series was not finished. My best wishes go to her family and friends.
The relationship between the Jao and the humans of Earth is complicated. It may be a path from hate to love over the history of the relationship. Fear, distrust, trust and promise are building the relationship and guide the decisions made by the members of the Jao and humans, as they prepare to fight the Ekhat. The relationship between humans and the Jao culture is fraught with tension and the potential for misunderstanding. There are many terms to explain the cultural differences the races have, but I found them easy to follow because of the good writing.
The world building is very impressive. There are three fully sentient races described in the story, the Humans, Jao, and Ekhat. Each has its strengths, weaknesses, oddities and traditions. I kept thinking that this reminds me of humans. The same 4 points could be made about me and all the people I know. This is a great way to relate the strange alien races to my own life and understanding.
The greatest tension in the book, after the difficulty of the different races communicating successfully across their barriers of difference is the looming threat of the Ekhat battle ships that will destroy anyone they encounter that are not Ekhat. This dangerous thread impacts every other storyline throughout the book, while not distracting from the interesting stories being told. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy military sci-fi or cross-cultural fiction.
I was intrigued by the faster than light technology used in the series. The frame point network is a unique addition to faster-than-light travel in science fiction and might possibly end up having some similarity to an actual technological solution to ftl, if humans ever achieve that.
When I finished the sequel I was ready to plunge into the next step in the story. Alas, I learned K. D. Wentworth died in 2012 and the third book in the series was not finished. My best wishes go to her family and friends.
macindog's review against another edition
5.0
After 20 years under the rule of the conquering, alien Jao, Earth's resistance factions are still strong and still a thorn in Governor Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo's side. Oppuk would dearly love to cleanse this world of it's infestation of an overly-fecund indigenous species but he also knows that very fact may help in their war with the mysterious and reputedly genocidal Ekhat.
The Ekhat have never been seen by humanity. Are they a Jao-invented boogie-man of whom terrible tales are meant to keep the slaves in line or are they a real threat and, as the Jao are saying, coming to our solar system soon? The Jao, genetically engineered by the Ekhat to fight their wars for them, operate like Roman legions or medieval Japanese clans; swift to conquer and swift to punish with little regard for any subject species but this timn it's different; humanity is different!
The arrival of the young subcommandant Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak, from a clan the ruling Narvo have no love for sets everything in motion to bring the Jao, the local human government and even the resistance together in a game of politics and intrigue that doesn't reveal until the play is at an end.
It's not often I give a book a five out of five but this one earned it. The plots within plots are Machiavellian and both Jao and Ekhat are beautifully alien to our way of life; the Jao with their complex and intricate body language and the Ekhat simply indescribable. The main player character's are decently fleshed out but not overly so and we get to know enough about them to keep the story going, with more revealed as time goes on. Happily looking forward to the next story in the series.
The Ekhat have never been seen by humanity. Are they a Jao-invented boogie-man of whom terrible tales are meant to keep the slaves in line or are they a real threat and, as the Jao are saying, coming to our solar system soon? The Jao, genetically engineered by the Ekhat to fight their wars for them, operate like Roman legions or medieval Japanese clans; swift to conquer and swift to punish with little regard for any subject species but this timn it's different; humanity is different!
The arrival of the young subcommandant Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak, from a clan the ruling Narvo have no love for sets everything in motion to bring the Jao, the local human government and even the resistance together in a game of politics and intrigue that doesn't reveal until the play is at an end.
It's not often I give a book a five out of five but this one earned it. The plots within plots are Machiavellian and both Jao and Ekhat are beautifully alien to our way of life; the Jao with their complex and intricate body language and the Ekhat simply indescribable. The main player character's are decently fleshed out but not overly so and we get to know enough about them to keep the story going, with more revealed as time goes on. Happily looking forward to the next story in the series.
foozmeat's review against another edition
4.0
I don’t know how the author manages to write such terrible human dialog while also creating a decent original alien culture. It’s like we’re gonna find out the author is really a Jao in the end. The books only human female character reads like an AI trained to reliably fail the Bechdel Test, truly cringe-worthy. All that being said I got into this story and will be reading more of the books.
nick_borrelli's review against another edition
3.0
Good sci-fi, not great. Thankfully it was a free download.
leons1701's review
4.0
Better than expected, honestly. I should have known better, Flint always seems to produce (leaving aside some failures in the Ring of Fire series that he apparently had little involvement with), but I was expecting another decent three star Space Opera, fun but nothing special. Instead, we get a reasonably thoughtful examination of interaction between humans and their alien conquerors. The Jao are pretty alien, though not nearly as alien as the ultimate enemy, the Ekhat, who are just plain weird and pretty much incomprehensible.
Yes, things are rather neatly arranged by the worldbuilding so that the Jao need humans (and humans need the Jao) but exactly how that plays out is well done. The book is at times rather talky, but it's interestingly talky, with each conversation driving either the plot or revealing important details of worldbuilding or character. Very little filler despite a rather hefty page count.
Yes, things are rather neatly arranged by the worldbuilding so that the Jao need humans (and humans need the Jao) but exactly how that plays out is well done. The book is at times rather talky, but it's interestingly talky, with each conversation driving either the plot or revealing important details of worldbuilding or character. Very little filler despite a rather hefty page count.
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