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A review by colossal
Heirs of Empire by Evan Currie
2.0
Interesting world-building let down by purple prose and mediocre story-telling.
On his way to a secure prison General Corian escapes due to the treachery of the troops escorting him there as they betray their leader Mira Delsol. He then leads a successful rebellion against Emperor, again aided by treacherous insiders. The Emperor's younger children, teenage twins escape and eventually meet up with Mira. Loyalist forces meet up with them and then attempt to retake the Empire.
The world building is the star here with the Empire existing as one square cell of what sounds an awful lot like an enormous artificial object, either a Niven Ring or a Dyson Sphere, although the people don't seem to realize this. There also seems to be aliens that have somehow interbred with the humans here and people with more alien blood have the ability to use certain alien technologies. This stuff is the redeeming parts of the book.
Unfortunately, the book itself is a completely pedestrian military SF with some incredibly purple prose. Seriously, this author has never met an adjective he doesn't like. Despite that, descriptions are few and far between, and some of the more fantastic technology, particularly of the sailcraft, need to be imagined rather than pictured. There's also lots of background that gets alluded to but never appropriately explored including the twin's issues with the Cadre (which stem from an incident never explained) and the Emperor's obvious preparation for a Cadre rebellion.
As to the plot? No twists. No turns. Everything I put in the paragraph above happens. No surprises. Yawn.
On his way to a secure prison General Corian escapes due to the treachery of the troops escorting him there as they betray their leader Mira Delsol. He then leads a successful rebellion against Emperor, again aided by treacherous insiders. The Emperor's younger children, teenage twins escape and eventually meet up with Mira. Loyalist forces meet up with them and then attempt to retake the Empire.
The world building is the star here with the Empire existing as one square cell of what sounds an awful lot like an enormous artificial object, either a Niven Ring or a Dyson Sphere, although the people don't seem to realize this. There also seems to be aliens that have somehow interbred with the humans here and people with more alien blood have the ability to use certain alien technologies. This stuff is the redeeming parts of the book.
Unfortunately, the book itself is a completely pedestrian military SF with some incredibly purple prose. Seriously, this author has never met an adjective he doesn't like. Despite that, descriptions are few and far between, and some of the more fantastic technology, particularly of the sailcraft, need to be imagined rather than pictured. There's also lots of background that gets alluded to but never appropriately explored including the twin's issues with the Cadre (which stem from an incident never explained) and the Emperor's obvious preparation for a Cadre rebellion.
As to the plot? No twists. No turns. Everything I put in the paragraph above happens. No surprises. Yawn.