Customer Reviews

Conventions of War (Dread Empire's Fall)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really enjoyed this series from the get go, and the final book in the series does not disappoint. Williams has created 2 great characters that follow parallel but mostly separate trajectories though the events of the rich universe he created. Each is a protagonist in their own tale, and a supporting character in the others. It may be a bit much to say that this is SF for people who like Jane Austin, but the strength of this series is in the same vein.

The problem with the vast majority of most hard SF is that it shows astonishing ideas acted out by cardboard cutout characters. And there is nothing wrong with that, since authors have to pick what they want to devote their energy to- and SF is by and large about the ideas. Books that get shelved in the literature section tend to be more about interesting characters and how their actions and their relationships play out. Williams seems to have been able to accomplish both with his deft writing.

So basically, if you like your SF character driven, (For instance, if you liked the show Firefly) then check out this series- you will not be disappointed.

Williams has finished off an enjoyable series with an enjoyable volume. The big things for space opera are done well: nice battle scenes, clever ideas, decent villains (though to be honest, the Naxids are not terribly interesting; the bad "good guys" are the source of fun and gnashing teeth). The writing is not as fine as in Williams' short stories (or in his best novels), but it's always readable and more than competent.

The characters are well drawn, and the nature of the characters makes this more interesting than typical good "interstellar shoot-'em-up" fare -- there's some irony, tragedy, and ambiguity to the (otherwise a bit traditional) ending -- it's not perfectly clear where some of Williams' sympathies lie, and that's a good thing.

Recommended to anyone who likes enjoyable non-slide-rule-bound science fiction, but doesn't demand High Literature.

This series has been different. It is space opera and follows all the normal conventions but it has just seemed "different" in some indescribable way. This third book has the same feel and is, in my mind, the best of the lot. It also leaves open the possibility of opening up the trilogy into a wider ranging series.
Humanity and its allied races are involved in a civil war. After the death of the last of the Shaa conquerors, one race, the Naxids, seek to replace the Shaa as overlords. Needless to say, the other races do not agree.
The allies have had to evacuate the capital planet. All of the government functionaries have fled leaving behind only the mass of citizens and the invaders. Also left behind is a small group of naval officers commissioned to lead an armed insurrection. Most of them are hopeless and good at nothing but being the aristocracy. One exception is Lady Sula. After all of the others are captured, she manages to lead a resistance movement that actually takes over the planet.
Meanwhile, Capt. Martinez and the fleet are trying to rebuild and prepare for a final action. The good captain is a naval innovator and a good leader and that leads him into conflict with the high brass where your bloodline made more difference than your abilities. While a big part of the story takes part with Capt. Martinez and some critical things happen, it is not the main thrust of the story. It is present for character development and as an opportunity to throw in a murder mystery.
The book reads well and keeps the attention. It is entertaining and different in tone and style from most space opera. Its lots of fun. I hope there will be further sequels.

The first book in this series, The Praxis, was engaging and built a solid foundation without a whole lot of action really taking place. The second book, The Sundering, picked up the pace quite a bit and the action was a bigger part of the writing. I thought the author did that well without giving up the strong character driven story that he was telling.

I try to always make a point of saying that I do not wish to give too much of the plot away so the review lacks some specifics. This being said several observations about the book can be made. This is the final book in the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy. Being the last book in the series thus far it is only fair to judge the book both on its own and for how well it completes and ties the series together.

As far as a stand alone book I thought the text did well but less well then its predecessors. The novel was well written, as the entire series had been, and the story moved along well. What I found to be frustrating was the various romantic triangles that became more pronounced along with the ignorance of the obtuse top brass in the fleet. These are both important parts of the plot and needed to be there but I they were not what I wanted to read. Take that as you will as it is obviously a personal preference.

The book did a much better job of tying the series up then it did as an individual text. Don't get me wrong. This was a good book regardless. I don't want to give any significant plotlines away but let me make a couple of statements. The very things that left me frustrated about the book as a stand alone item were the very things that left this series one that I will think about for quite some time. The book does a good job of closing MOST of the loose ends but it does not tie everything up in a neat bow for us. The ending is good and interesting which is not necessarily the same thing as saying it was satisfying. The best I can say is thought provoking.

I came very close to giving this book 5 stars. As a book though I believe it only deserves 4 although a very high 4. I gave each of the individual books in the series a 4 but I think I might be inclined to give the entire series a 5 star review. This is definitely a case were the sum of the whole was greater then the parts. Very good book and a great series.

I was definitely disappointed with the conclusion to Dread Empire's Fall. As a fan of the series since the first book came out, i was looking forward to an epic final confrontation, well written chracters and a thoughtful, intriguing storyline. Unfortunately, I what i got was an overly long, formulaic mail-it-in novel that wrapped up the storyline without any surprises, added at least 150-200 unecessary pages purely for the purpose of adding length, and in the end shortchanged one of the great strengths of the series (its interesting, sympathetic and very imperfect characters) with a 5-page thrown-in-at-the-last-minute conclusion. And the problem of this rushed and obviously tacked-on ending is only exhasperated by the correspondingly drawn-out and anti-climactic final confrontation (a confrontation that takes place no less than FOUR (4!?!?!?!?!?!) times, with each engagement less interesting than the last.
In addition to the basic poblems, Conventions of War suffers from a serious lack of originality: Almost every interesting development in the story-arc of this series (from the naxid rebellion to the development of new fighting tactis to meet the naxid threat, the developing relationship between the main characters) occurs in the first two books. The only captivating parts of the third novel involve the Sula character's urban-guerilla campaign in the capitol city. This new resistance movement proveds a new, fresh feel to a series that had, up to this point largely focused on space-combat. But these guerilla sequences are interlaced with a totally pointless murder mystery plot for the Martinez character that was obviously thrown in simply to give the character something to do. And when the final climactic naval engagment finally arrives, it is dragged out through three different battles, with each of the last two being carbon copies of earlier engagements in the series.
The book is generally well written, and the characters remain captivating (for the most part), but i was expecting so much more from the conclusion to this series.

One of the hallmarks of well written fiction, for me at least, is that I get so caught up in the characters that I find myself saying "Why did they do that?" instead of "Why did the author write them that way?" This book definitely falls into the former category - well written, with real characters and a story that kept my attention and interest.

Read the entire trilogy - having the full context makes it so much richer.

A good finish to the "Dread Empire's Fall", but not equal to quality of the first two books in the series. It is more than 200 pages longer than the previous two and some of the plot lines are bloated. I would also have liked at least some of the book to examine things from the Naxid (seemingly not very bright villians) perspective. Also, most series provide some explaination about what happened in the first two books and this book did not, despite its great length. For example, a first time reader would have no idea who or what the Shaa or Praxis are.

Great space opera, and a fitting conclusion to the series. Walter Jon Williams writes some of the best pulp science fiction around.
It ends on a bit of an open note... I hope it sells well enough that he writes more in this universe.

If you like space opera, huge settings, huge explosions, huge risks and happy endings, then this is the series for you. As far as I'm concerned, it's a good break from the more weighty types of SF. This has all the elements of space opera (including *lots* of space battles) along with characterization that is good enough to make you care about the characters, at least to some degree. Like any good space opera, though, most of the characters are two-dimensional, giving you just enough to see them as good guys, bad guys, or, in a few cases, good guys that are really nasty individuals regardless.

As far as the science goes, well, barring the "wormholes" (which the evidence is apparently currently against), it's mostly plausible, except for the almost total disregard for relativity. Given that Martinez spends a whole lot of time at significant fractions of the speed of light, he should return to find his son grown, perhaps with sons of his own.

Of course, that wouldn't have made as good a story.

If you're looking for Literature, don't go here, this ain't it. Nor is it cyberpunk or hard SF. It's good old-fashioned space opera.

So often Science Fiction, and the sub-genre of Space Opera in particular, is set amidst a completely unbelievable background, either an unlikely extrapolation of current society and science or worse still, our current society set in a thinly veiled future that lacks any cohesion.

The Dread Empire series defies this trend by setting the books in very believable, cohesive, and reasonable setting. What a wonderful change from the likes of David Weber's Honorverse.

"Conventions of War" is a solid ending to the "Dread Empires Fall" series that leaves the reader wanting more, and happily, there seems to be plenty of room for additional books in the series.

Mr. Williams gives us rich character development and compelling action amidst the stars. Hallelujah! I give it 5 stars.