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A review by spaceman5000
The Cruel Stars by John Birmingham
4.0
A super exciting space adventure that would make an awesome movie! It gets off to a little bit of a slow start as it plows through about five different groups of heroes and it can be a little overwhelming and confusing keeping those perspectives straight, but about a third of the book in things really explode!
By the halfway point you are fully engaged and off on an exciting, wild, bloody ride! I was not expecting the level of violence in this book, but it didn't bother me - it added to the exhilarating action scenes! The cast of characters are diverse and a lot of fun. There's plenty of military bravado, technobabble and badassery. Sometimes that can get tiring but it all fits into the story and works well.
The basic plot is that humans are all over the galaxy and most of the population is augmented in some way with physical and neural enhancements. Also, people's consciousness can be loaded into a new body, so you never die. The villains are a group of non-augmented "true" humans, the Sturm, who feel that augmentations are abominations and need to be wiped out.....Space Nazis! Needless to say, they attack and all hell breaks loose.
I was not aware this is the first book in a series when I picked it up. The ending is satisfying to me but the story is certainly not complete. I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series (not due to be released until Aug 24, 2021, though.....boo!
By the halfway point you are fully engaged and off on an exciting, wild, bloody ride! I was not expecting the level of violence in this book, but it didn't bother me - it added to the exhilarating action scenes! The cast of characters are diverse and a lot of fun. There's plenty of military bravado, technobabble and badassery. Sometimes that can get tiring but it all fits into the story and works well.
The basic plot is that humans are all over the galaxy and most of the population is augmented in some way with physical and neural enhancements. Also, people's consciousness can be loaded into a new body, so you never die. The villains are a group of non-augmented "true" humans, the Sturm, who feel that augmentations are abominations and need to be wiped out.....Space Nazis! Needless to say, they attack and all hell breaks loose.
I was not aware this is the first book in a series when I picked it up. The ending is satisfying to me but the story is certainly not complete. I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series (not due to be released until Aug 24, 2021, though.....boo!