26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
What Happened to Vorpal Blade?, December 25, 2008
I truly have enjoyed the series so far. That is, until I hit this book.
In the past two books (Vorpal Blade and Manxome Foe) the focus of the characters have shifted from Dr. William Weaver (Into the Looking Glass) to a character not even mentioned in the first book, with the new character Eric "Two Guns" Bergstresser taking over as the star. While this in itself wouldn't normally bother me, the fact that Dr. Weaver becomes a cardboard caricature of what made him so cool in book 1 really gets me down.
There were parts of it I really enjoyed, such as when the space spiders eat the Dreen and the taking of the Dreen "mother ship" by the space Marines. The action scenes, when they do occur, are marvelous and fast paced. The romance behind "Two Guns" and his new wife is superb, though she seems quite mature for a teenager fresh out of high school. Maybe that was just the impression I got...
However, my enjoyment of these scenes was dampened by the Tum Tum tree and the subsequent anime change. It was confusing and slowed the story down immensely, not to mention it was just plain odd. I understand the inspiration behind it, but I felt it was placed into the book to fill space until the action could start for real.
Also, the authors left out Tuffy and Mimi in this book, shifting instead the main "oddness" factor onto Miriam. The voice in her head, while interesting, really can't replace what Tuffy and Mimi as a duo brought to the series. Miriam was a known genius that was played up in earlier books, but Mimi and Fluffy brought a feeling of innocence and power that the character Miriam seems unable to duplicate. I hope that Tuffy and Mimi make a triumphant return later.
One major quibble: Poertena. He was, to me, annoying in the Empire of Man series Ringo coauthored with David Weber. To bring him into this universe, with the same accent, personality and everything, smacks of laziness and arrogance. It's as though the authors suggest that it doesn't matter what they do in the book or how lazy they can be, people will buy it nonetheless.
The problems in this book can and probably will affect the later sales of this series. I'm hoping that the series can go back from "anime" scifi to "hard" scifi that made it so promising initially.
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26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enemies MAY kill you, people problems WILL, November 6, 2008
This one got five stars, which should tell you how I felt about this latest entry in the Looking Glass Saga. Once again the A.S.S. Vorpal Blade(II) goes forth to find out "What's out there? Thataway," and runs headlong into more trouble than you'ld want to see in one lifetime.
As with the last book,
Manxome Foe (Looking Glass, Book 3) the first two-thirds or so of the book deal with daily living, people, preparations for lift-off, and the people problems of getting a crew working as a team. This is followed by the sort of space and small-unit battle that the authors handle superbly.
All of it was very well-written and thoroughly engrossing to the point where I hated having to interrupt my reading with little things like eating, work, dinner with my wife, websurfing. And I'm very glad, as I write this, that I finished it in time NOT to lose anything as unimportant as sleep.
The title of this review, however, is how I'll be thinking of this story for a long time. Remember the problem of shaking down a crew of people, most of them strangers to each other, into a smoothly functioning team? THAT is truly, for me, what this book was about. The really important battle in this book was creating that team, getting the screwups to learn better, INCLUDING the captain, and turning them into a family. I won't give you any spoilers here. Each and every one of those scenes is engrossing, and taught me powerful lessons about how to function at my job and do the people parts WELL.
And, as the last parts of the book make pellucidly clear, if the people problems hadn't been worked on BEFORE the "murthering great battle" at the end, NOBODY would have made it out of this one alive.
FYI, the CD that comes with the book has:
All of the books in the Looking Glass series(Into the Looking Glass, Vorpal Blade, Manxome Foe, Claws That Catch)
All of the books in the Council Wars series(There Will Be Dragons, Emerald Sea, Against the Tide, East of the Sun, West of the Moon)
All of the books in the Paladin of Shadows series(Ghost, Kildar, Choosers of the Slain, Unto the Breach, A Deeper Blue)
All of the books in the Empire of Man series (co-authored with David Weber)
Almost all of the books in the Aldenata Series (Honor of the Clan isn't out yet, darnit!)
All of Doc Travis' books for Baen, both solo and co-authored with John Ringo.
The Last Centurion
The Road to Damascus (The Bolo Series)
Getting that with this book is rather like being told "You liked this gold coin, eh, boy? Well, here's a sack of 'em. Go have fun."
It just doesn't get better than a package like this.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Should have been better. Too little action, very slow, December 21, 2008
This is probably the shortest book in the series, and as hardcover's go, very short. Too little time spent on the primary characters, too much time spent on new characters. None of the engaging battles we're used to, just a couple that seemed more like poorly thought out fillers. The primary complaints with the first book: too much time on politics and trying to force-feed us math and physics. Both of those are back with a vengeance.
The books are now following a predictable plot line. Ship explores unknown space. Ship discovers a new [insert world/BDO/Race here]. Ship defends said discovery from Dreen. Just when all seems lost [BDO/new race from recently discovered world/another Ship] saves the day. Same plot in every book in the series. Yes, they are well written, but as the series continues it becomes more boilerplate, and the characters more one dimensional.
In case you don't know, BDO is SciFi speak for Big Dumb Object.
Unless the plots, character development and action improve - and improve quickly - this series is doomed. Doomed I say!
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