Customer Reviews

Dark Planet

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

For pretty much the same story, similar characters with the same powers, aliens species with the same names, same problems for the hero, same equipment, same opponent, ect...

Read the Baen book Hero(ISBN#0-7434-8827-X)published about a year earlier
another reader gathered up the particulars, so I will use their post for this.
An alien race in DP : Indowy
The main character is an outsider who joins a human Deep Recon Team (DRT)
The main character is psychic.
he main character is incapable of killing.
The main character uses a 'punch gun'
The DRT infiltrates an alien held planet.
The enemy aliens are nicknamed 'blobs'
An ancient artifact is found, called a 'lindl'
The main character must fight one of his team members, a sniper, for possession
of the artifact.
read the copy, or read the original, by Mike Williamson. Also, in the original, there is an entire series that has many of the books available at the publishers website in full, for free.

That this book was by Charles Sasser is an obvious warning sign to begin with: the man is known for many things, but not for his writing ability. His work can be generally expected to be of dismally low quality, but Dark Planet plumbs a new depth even for him.

More than two years ago, he was approached to co-write a book with John Ringo, set in Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata universe. His attempt, however, sucked; after repeated consultations he was unable to improve upon it, despite the fact that Ringo had told him basically what to write. He was dropped from the project after his incompetence was firmly proven, and the job given to Michael Z. Williamson, who wrote the book known as Hero, which was published in July 2004.

However, unwilling to accept that he sucked, Sasser then attempted to pawn off the rejected filling-in of someone else's plot as his own work; as this book, Dark Planet. However, he knew that it would be critically necessary to change certain elements so that he wouldn't be pinpointed as having stolen Ringo's work without paying or crediting him. Rather than changing trademark issues ("Indowy", "blobs", and so forth, all appear in their original context in the book), Sasser chose instead to alter details of realism. In the inference that his readers are no smarter than he is, and possibly to show general contempt for the "geeky" SF genre, Sasser instead chooses to differentiate his work from Ringo's by displaying an apparent third-grade science education.

Among other things, Sasser's hero is an alien with deep romantic desire for a human; he has ignored the fact that it is biologically impossible for aliens to feel lust or love for humans, let alone breed with them. Further, Tau Ceti is a star system, not a galaxy. These are plausible mistakes that a Star Trek quality-control team would not let through, mistakes that do to suspension-of-disbelief what multiple-megaton explosives do to suspension bridges.

Nevertheless, this book does have merits. It's inspirational, for aspiring writers who hope to get published and fear their work will never be good enough. A quick glance through Dark Planet will show even the crudest writer of Harry Potter slash fanfic that his work is superior to *something*, which will be worth the price of admission to many.

The author changes a few names and submits it somewhere else, even if it WAS originally written in another author's universe using that other author's outline... A quick search on Usenet will reveal that Charles Sasser was the original coauthor contracted to write "The Hero" with John Ringo, but the manuscript was deemed unrepairable by the publisher and so the contract passed to Mike. Leaving Charles Sasser with a manuscript and no contract for it. As can be seen from the description, little was changed from John Ringo's outline, and some of the alien race names are retained (although anyone calling the Indowy warlike obviously didn't read the other Aldenata books very closely).

Other reviewers here have told the story of the rejection of the manuscript that became this book as "unrepairable."

I had a look at the book at my local science-fiction bookstore, and the word "unrepairable" compliments this lousy excuse of a book far beyond its merits. "The Hero", which is the story that finally emerged from John Ringo and Michael Williamson, grabbed me from the first paragraph and wouldn't let go. After getting ten pages into this book, the only question I had about it was "How did Sasser find *anyone* stupid enough to publish it?" We'll probably never know.

Avoid at all costs... really.

I won't go into how this novel came about as other reviewers have covered that pretty well. But I will say that it is always possible that it may have been the author's agent that made sure this book made it to the stands and not the author.

This book is really bad. Set in another author's universe, a military team is sent to a hostile planet to check if the alien Blobs have established a base there. The main character is not human although the rest of the cast is. During the course of the book the focus seems to change. Is it military SF, SF horror, adventure, or what?

The planet is inhabited by giant bugs and reptiles. Really giant like from some old pulp. They all are very dangerous and would love to each the team. That is except when the plot calls for the nasties to all stay away or placid for long periods (more and more as the book progresses). Eventually the story moves to an object quest as one tries to keep the object out of the wrong hands.

The book starts by quickly establishing the dangerous nature of the planet and then slowly abandons the idea. Interspecies romance, although frowned upon by all species, seems to crop up an awful lot. Like Burroughs's Barsoom, the planet seems to be inhabited entirely by carnivores. The action is choppy at best. Being set in another author's universe leaves it feeling like there is a lot of information left out. All in all, it is just not a good book.

HMMM, If I were John Ringo or Mike Williamson I'd be insulted as this book is a blatant ripoff of "Hero"

In the far distant future while earth is a wasteland populated by mutants, humanity colonized countless planets becoming the dominant power in the galaxy after they crushed the Indowy technology which made humans and Zentadons little more than slaves. Now under the Galaxia Republic, humans are the species with the most power and the Zentadon and the Indowy races have evolved into pacifists.

There is a new alien species that is moving into Federation territory known as the Blobs and it is believed they are building a base on the Dark Planet Aldenia. Deep Reconnaissance Team 2113 is sent there undercover and one of the members is Kadar San, a half-breed human Zentadon with telepathic powers. They discover an old Indowy weapon that could decimate the galaxy and Kadar San wants it destroyed. However another member, of the team Blade who is influenced by the evil Presence wants to take the weapon off planet so it can be used as a weapon of mass destruction. There is a benign Presence who sides with Kadar San in his battle with Blade and the evil Presence and the stake of their encounter is the survival or destruction of the galaxy.

Readers who like military science fiction within a space opera will love DARK PLANET. The alien seem very real as if the author traveled through time to the future and recorded the cultures of different sentient species. There is a lot of action in this novel but that doesn't mean the characters are stereotypes. The protagonists are well developed sometimes make mistakes but always fight to destroy evil. The romance between Kadar San and one of his teammates adds another dimension to a satisfying reading experience.

Harriet Klausner