22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get this book now!, October 27, 2007
I wasn't sure what to think when I picked this one up. Kevin J. Anderson has written a lot of books, and the ones I've read have been good, but not great. I thought his Star Wars novels seemed.... simplistic. I thought his Dune novels (at least the ones I've read) came across as unfocused, relating a series of events as opposed to a coherent story. But, I picked this one up as I'm a die hard Superman fan, after reading a couple good reviews. Wow. I was totally blown away. The book did a number of things I would have thought possible. It told a remarkable and engaging Superman story, without Superman in it. It made General Zod interesting (I have always hated that character) And it even took what I considered to be the dumbest bit of Superman lore (the bottled city of Kandor) and made it into the Superman equivalent of 9-11. This is not a good book. This is a great book. Highly recommended for Superman fans, Sci-fi fans, and just about anyone who likes a good book. Go pick it up, and read it, and then try and tell me I'm wrong!
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Super-Disappointing Fiction!, December 31, 2009
This review is from: The Last Days of Krypton (Mass Market Paperback)
I found the book sitting on a forgotten shelf in the library and thought, how bad could it possibly be, after Kevin J. Anderson destroyed Dune, destroying Krypton won't be all that different. How wrong I was! Spoilers below, read at your own risk.
The concept the this book started off well. I was actually tempted and fascinated to see what life on Krypton was like in its last days. I was actually surprised that while Kevin tried to establish a civilization, he forgot the most important aspect, religion. He talked about past warlords, but did not mentioned any Gods of Krypton. Was there no religion other than worshipping their sun Rao?
The emerald green lava that was displaced from the core, was never really explained, it was intended to be established as the green meteor rock that we see on Earth as Kryptonite. The convenience of Brainiac stealing Kandor working itself into the story, just didn't really add the punch it needed. Neither did the visit by the blue traveler alien Donodon, his origins were not mentioned, nor his conveniently salvaged computer banks that held the location for Mars and Earth. Wow, the blue planet seen from an alien computer, would you send your son to this world in a last desperate attempt?
The story actually started mutating to civil war amongst the Kryptonians and their fight against General Zod, after Kandor got stolen, he took the opportunity to seize power and destroy his opposition. Even his aides Aethyr, possibly Ursa from the movie, and Nam-Ek, possibly Non from the Superman movies were hopeless. I'm sure General Zod was more powerful than sitting around gathering political power and getting his aides to do his dirty work for him!
The love between Jor-El and Lara, which should have transcended all love stories, was touch and go. As the novel progressed, I actually never felt anything, not even a spark between them, maybe it's his version of Kryptonian romance, I really don't know! Lara's pregnancy didn't even feel real, it was like, marriage, hey I'm pregnant, a period of civil war, and then out pops Kal-El after all the chaos! At the same time, I was appalled that Superman lore got twisted such that the Phantom Zone used to imprison Zod and his minions, get this, got thrown down a lava shaft and caused a singularity which caused the planet's destruction. Ah yes, and don't get me started on the pesky comet!
Kevin enjoys picking ideas from various sources, be it TV series, movies or comics and then stitching them together like an American quilt, except, you can see how bad the stitching is when he tries to create variations on the quilt that don't quite seem to fit together or make sense! If you have read enough of Kevin's novels and series, you will understand his need to establish names and ranks and bombastic terms for them. Throw in all those hyphenated names he created, Or-om, No-Ton, were they really necessary? These things in conjunction with superlatives that were frivolously thrown about all over the story to add some kind of color to the novel just made it all the more a nightmare to read. Also, his story telling methods are descriptively linear, they don't really allow readers to think for themselves to put things together. He leads readers by the nose through the entire story, hardly the stuff of sci-fi legend.
I will NOT recommend this book to casual readers or even readers of Superman lore, you might consider it blasphemy! I'd rather readers turn to the Superman comics to enjoy the creative stories told there, rather than waste any of your precious time on this trashy novel.
And before you actually go poking holes in my review of this novel, answer this: Kevin J Anderson has written so many sci-fi novels, if all of them were so great that fans and critics claim them to be, why has none of them been offered to be turned into movies, much less TV series? Even for the sake of argument that it does become a movie, will it actually make money, or will it be one of those straight to DVD movies that end up in the $1.99 discount bin at Blockbusters?
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but Could Be Better, November 1, 2007
When I first heard Kevin J. Anderson would be writing a novel about events leading to the destruction of Krypton I was quite looking forward to his take on this classic mythology. For the most part I was pleased with Anderson's version, but I had two major quibbles. One, I thought his portrayal of Jor-El as a rather weak, easily duped man was too different from what we've all come to know from the many comic book variations. Second, I thought Anderson spent far too much time on the Zod story; it really bogged down the middle part of the book. What I do give Anderson credit for is taking the many different variations on the Krypton mythology, including the films and Smallville, while adding his own original ideas, to create his version of this timeless tale. I also thought it was an ingenious idea to make his Krypton a society of Luddites. Overall, this was a good effort, and as with any Anderson novel the final pages concluded at an action-packed, break-neck speed.
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