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55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too ambitious?, June 14, 2003
I didn't really start to enjoy this book until I was about halfway through. Anderson starts off by introducing you to ALL the characters immediately, and there's a good number of them. I think this is mainly because he's trying to set up a whole elaborate universe, and wants to set down all the rules and history immediately, rather than exposing you to them as it becomes necessary. So it's a bit confusing at first. He does start bringing their plot lines together around the midpoint, and as I mentioned, that made it more interesting and coherent. However, I never really identified or personally cared for any of the characters. Anderson never sold me on any of them. Also, it should be noted that this is indeed the first book of a series, and it can NOT stand on it's own. He leaves you with cliffhangers, so expect to read the sequel(s?) also.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Space Opera - Comic Book Style, February 20, 2010
I love Space Opera. It is my favorite genre within Science Fiction. Peter Hamilton, David Brin, David Weber and Iain Banks are my favorite Space Opera masters. I love a big story, so I went ahead and read this whole series. But as I got closer and closer to the end of the final book the horrifically bad plotting just got worse and worse and I actually started to lose respect for myself as an intelligent reader. I will give you three examples of Anderson's ridiculousness and let you decide for yourself.
A fundamental constraint of Space Opera stories is the question of interstellar travel: how is it accomplished? how long does it take? The answers to these questions are critical to the issues of trade and warfare within the fictional universe. Anderson does not answer the question - sometimes traveling from star to star seems to take effectively zero time, other times travel time seems extended and slow. He writes about an interstellar drive and in-system drives without indicating when or how they are used. Sometimes ships seem to appear immediately above their destination planet without any need to travel through the system on a slower drive, other times it takes two hours to travel from Earth to the Moon. Multiple fleets, using different technologies, leaving from far flung destinations, all arrive more or less simultaneously for multi-sided battles on many different occasions. Space flight happens however Anderson needs it to happen for any given scene.
Anderson also has failed to grasp the basic concept of space being vast and empty. There are at least four separate times in the series where one group of ships just happens to blunder into another group of ships in the middle of interstellar space - without even the poor excuse of traveling between the same two points!
Finally, an interstellar empire of 100 planets or more is governed entirely despotically by just one man, the Chairman of the Hansa, Basil Wenceslas. There are no factions, there are no congresses or parliaments, he has one assistant and that is the entirety of the governmental system. Wenceslas's word is law and no one ever resists or disagrees with him. There is absolutely no representational government whatsoever.
I was flabergasted by the ridiculous simplicity of the plot until I discovered that this was a multi-media effort with a series of comic books that goes along with it. Once I realized he was writing for comic books it all made a lot more sense. Anderson writes things that would look cool if you drew them. The rigors of detailed thought that characterize a lot of Science Fiction are just not present. If David Weber's Honor Harrington series sometimes goes too far in detailing the workings of parliamentary government and 'showing the math' behind his warfare model, Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns brushes all the details aside and simply says "wouldn't this look cool?"
I gave it three stars because I actually read all seven books and was pretty entertained most of the time. I read books very quickly so it wasn't that much of an investment on my part. If you like to be choosy about what you read and only want to invest in the best stuff, this certainly isn't it.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Space Opera for Children, May 31, 2009
My main problem with this book is in the behaviour and thought processes of the main characters. These are people who are supposed to be highly intelligent leaders of worlds and yet who act and react with child-like simplicity. For instance, while it takes the reader mere paragraphs to realize what our protagonists have done to invoke the wrath of the mysterious race of "hydrogues", it takes the characters, in what can only be termed a truly world-class exhibition of monumental stupidity, many chapters to come to the same realization. In fact, said hydrogues have to explicitly spell it out for them. And this is representative of the whole book. Another example: I love how he has characters repeatedly proclaiming their desire to fight the enemy and, when they do, running for the hills when they realize, YET AGAIN, that they don't stand a chance against this invincible foe. Just silly silliness.
And clearly Anderson has absolutely no understanding of economics and geopolitics. The way that the job of harvesting the most valuable resource in the universe ("ekti") is delegated to others because the powers that be just can't be bothered to do the dirty work is simply inconceivable. If only our oil-based world was like that!
And finally, the pièce de résistance. I read my first book when I was six years old. A science fiction story complete with beautifully drawn full-colour art that I still remember fondly to this day. In fact, this is the book that started my life-long love affair with science fiction. I am now in my mid-fifties and have read many science fiction books over the intervening years, both good and bad. But in reading all those books, I have never had a reaction like the one I experienced while reading a certain passage in this book. It's hard to describe but basically I did the reading equivalent of a "double take". Anderson has these floating factories that harvest hydrogen in the upper levels of gas giant planets. He also has these factories completely open to the environment. Open-air factories in the noxious, poisonous atmosphere of a gas giant! Wow. I actually had to pause for a moment when I read this. And there are more science gaffes in this book; so many in fact that I just cannot fathom how someone so obliviously ignorant of science ever got started down the path of writing science fiction.
Another (smaller) gripe: It seems every page is laced with the phrase "Guiding Star". If I see that stupid phrase one more time...
Suffice it to say that this work is much too simple-minded for its intended adult audience and is probably best suited to act as an introduction to science fiction for children below the age of 13.
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