11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not really about Eve..., May 26, 2010
*spoilers ahead*
As an avid sci-fi reader and an off and on Eve player I was pretty excited about getting this book, but since starting it I've been really disappointed. I should also mention I've stopped reading this book about half way through, there's just no motivation left to finish. First and foremost, in EVE-Online you're a enhanced human plugged into a space ship taking part in deep space naval combat. It would be nice if that was what the book was about rather than Generic Person Number 234234 and an "Agent" who's sole purpose in the game is to feed you the same canned missions and briefings over and over again. Perhaps the star of the next book could be a custodian in an restaurant somewhere and a tree since they have about as much impact on the game. Of course, they are part of the Eve-Universe, I'll grant that, but beyond their insignificance in general I just couldn't much care about them.
The first character, who's home colony is blown up, is part of the "Blood Raiders", a pirate faction of Eve who's back story is different but pretty much that of the Reapers from Firefly in terms of violence. Lots of torturing people to death and ickyness. "Blood Raiders" really says it all about them. It would have been interesting if the book had presented their 'other side', but no, its all about harvesting humans for them in the book as well. So when his home gets torched... I don't care. As for the Agent, aside from the page after page of descriptions of the inside of a space station (not all of which makes complete logical sense) its just the story of an overworked business person crashing out on drugs. There are a heck of a lot better written stories out there if that's what you want to read about. Her ethical dilemma is all fine and dandy, and perhaps even justified with her, but my lack of empathy on this gets back to not really caring about some space-born butchers getting killed such as the other main character's family, the fact that as an Eve player in the game world the reader would be one of the mass murders she bemoans (so I guess we're supposed to feel guilty?), and finally having just reread the first eve book before this one came out with its nearly planetary level genocide on several separate occasions, her whining just feels like that. Whining.
Maybe I was being overly optimistic, but when you pick up a science fiction book set in a space combat game universe with a battleship and an explosion on the cover, you maybe expect a bit more action than a paragraph about orbital bombardment and a single frigate attacking a battleship with predictable results (that entire part by the way was so contrived, nonsensical and poorly written both in terms of a story and in terms of blatantly breaking from how eve game play works it was depressing) in the first hundred pages. Maybe the book picks up in the second half but then good god Mr. Danielsson, learn some pacing.
All in all, I'd rate this a Uwe Boll movie in book form.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Worthy of a free PDF included with the game, not $10, June 13, 2010
Eve: The Burning Life ended up reading more like an introduction to the non-player side and world of Eve-Online the online game. While there was a chapter or two that was of interest to learn more about the world of Eve, even to a old player like myself the overall quality and story of this "book" was lacking, I personally didn't feel it'd justify the price of a $5 paperback, and would have felt it been better if the makers of Eve-Online included it as a free PDF for everyone that bought a copy of the game. It really didn't read like an intro to any video game, just one that was spread over several hundred pages.
This is contrary to the better work done on Empyrean Age, which I felt was a much better and interesting book. I'd recommend searching that one out instead if you're looking for some Eve related material and a quality book.
You won't find it here.
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9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wow! . . . and not in a good way . . ., April 13, 2010
I must preface this review by saying that I AM familiar with EVE Online and am fascinated by both the game and the fiction that the game has spawned. Both have demonstrated tremendous potential for depth; I have read excellent player fiction posted in the form of blogs and player run fiction sites, aside from CCP-produced fiction. I also must say that I generally have a policy of not writing a review of fiction . . . after all, it is so easy to critique someone else's work, but the reality remains that they are published . . . and I am not.
However . . . this piece of work was so less than satisfying, I feel that a caveat emptor is in order.
This book was a huge disappointment. Extremely loose plot, no theme, superficial characters and forced dialogue.
I will not go into great detail (just in case someone wants to buy the book), but the story deals with the protagonist who after an attack and loss, decides that vengeance is the only option left to him. In the meantime, another minor character, who is on a path of self-destruction, commits a crime and goes on the run. Of course, the two stories intersect towards the end, because of course, they need each other in order for the protagonist's plan to come to fruition. The lesson in the end is that . . . actually, I'm not sure what the lesson was. But that's okay; I don't have to have a moral to the story, as long as it's an entertaining read, which this was not. Boring.
The dialogue was no better. The conversations between characters read almost like a screenplay from a tween drama . . . quite fake and forced. The attempts to elicit emotion from the exchanges between characters did not work, probably because you don't get to know who these people really are. It seemed to me that what was more important to the author was focusing on the various factions in the EVE Universe as opposed to showing us who these people really were and what the reasons were for their actions.
The technique in writing was also a major disappointment. The following is a brief demonstration of the kind of words and terms that are found to be used multiple times every couple of pages: "entirely", "stock-still", "volumetric displays", something being 'half-this' and/or 'half-that', "proper" and "clearly". As I progressed through the novel, I became exasperated whenever I came across one of the foregoing terms; they were used so much throughout the story. The story was full of awkward word choice, word usages, and strange and excessive use of profanity. It made me wonder if the author would have been better off writing the book in his native tongue and then having it translated into English. This feature was one of the most distracting of the book, and took my focus away from the story.
The penultimate chapter began the book's hasty wrap-up and conclusion. The mental somersaults required to accept the conclusion was too much for me to accept, and it simply did not work.
My conclusion is that this book is - unfortunately - a dud. I found the writing to be tedious and horrendous. And forget about it if you have no clue what EVE Online is; you will be completely lost. I find that, in comparison to the first book - The Empyrean Age - this book is a huge disappointment, both for science fiction fans and fans of EVE Online fiction. This book cannot be classified as serious science fiction and it is most certainly not high-quality EVE Online fiction. I would say that it fits more into the category of middle-grade fiction; however, due to the frequent (and awkward!) use of profanity, I'm not sure that parents would want their 8-12 year olds reading this book. I would not recommend this book for purchase for these reasons. There are far superior works out there in cyberspace that are free, for example Kalin Ringkvist's "Against A Rock".
I apologize to the author for this scathing review, but I hope this review has been helpful to any thinking of buying and reading this book.
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