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A review by leons1701
The Course of Empire by David Carrico, K.D. Wentworth, Eric Flint
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.