Customer Reviews

Metal Swarm (Saga of Seven Suns Series)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Metal Swarm (2007) is the sixth SF novel in the Saga of Seven Suns series, following Of Fire and Night. In the previous volume, the soldier compy revolt stripped the Earth Defense Forces of warships. When the hydrogues and Klikiss robots invaded the Terran system, General Kurt Lanyan gathered his remaining ships for a last stand. During the battle, King Peter and Queen Estarra fled to Theroc to escape the threats of Hansa Chairman Basil Wenceslas.

The Ildiran Solar Navy turned against the hydrogues and assisted the EDF ships. Then verdani treeships, Roamer vessels and faeros fireballs arrived and fought against the hydrogues. The hydrogue diamond ships were totally defeated. Soon wentals were dropped into the atmospheres of known hydrogue planets to drive away the aliens.

In this novel, King Peter begins to organize the new confederation of Hansa colonies, Roamer groups and the forest planet of Theroc. He starts by refusing the services of green priests to the Big Goose, thereby reducing their message traffic to lightspeed or courier ships. Then the surviving verdani treeships leave Theroc to spread worldtrees throughout the galaxy.

Mage-Imperator Jora'h begins to rebuild his damaged cities and worlds. Yet his consort Nira reminds him that he has unfinished business with the humans. He decides that the Mage-Imperator should personally inform the humans of the evil done against them by himself and his ancestors.

The Roamers begin to rebuild their installations destroyed by the EDF and the hydrogues. Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni assist the Roamers and also begin to gather disassociated wentals for transport to Charybdis. Patrick Fitzpatrick III begins to search for Zhett Kellum.

In this story, the Confederation seems to be doing well, but its enemies have not all disappeared. Chairman Wenceslas is still making bad decisions that hurt the Hansa colonies within the Confederation and his orders have led General Lanyan into still further atrocities. But Wenceslas is also steadily turning his friends into enemies.

Moreover, the Klikiss have returned. They are definitely searching out their robots and destroying them. Yet they are also killing humans when they get in the way.

The Klikiss robots are using the captured EDF warships to attack their former masters, but the insect-like aliens are fighting back. The number of irreplaceable Klikiss robots, subverted compies and captured weapons is steadily being reduced. Sirix is beginning to question his own plans.

The faeros have become more aggressive since the insane Rusa'h has been incarnated as a fire elemental. Rusa'h incinerates Udru'h on Dobro, but lets Prime Designate Daro'h return to the Mage-Imperator. Then Rusa'h tours the Horizon Cluster, consuming the soulfires of Ildiran splinter colonists.

This story produces more threats against the Confederation. Naturally, these threats are also sources of danger to the Big Goose, but Wenceslas ignores them in his plans to destroy King Peter and all his allies. How many new threats will come in future volumes?

The author has invented some strange concepts and names, but the storyline drags. The overall plot is getting somewhat old. Still, the story itself is rather interesting.

Recommended for Anderson fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of interstellar empires, exotic dangers, and a bit of romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This book is consistent with it's predecessors. It's well written, the characters well developed, and fairly unique in the world it describes. However, is anything ever going to happen in these books? They drag on and on...becoming boring in parts when Anderson spends so much time on one small scenario. These books have been compared to Frank Herbert's Dune series. That's absurd. More happened, with a much greater level of excitement, in the single first Dune novel, than ALL of these installments of the Saga. As with the Ildiran story that this series refers to, it's a never ending story.....which might be positive in some ways, but is growing increasingly frustrating as this current installment grinds on...and on.....and on....

I've read the entire series. If you've read the series you will find nothing is added by this segment. I think Mr. Anderson needs to sit back and rethink where this story line is headed. I ordered this volume as soon as it was available. I will not be so quick when the next is released, as I'm sure it will be. Sorry!

Time and again Anderson spends hours of storytelling putting his heros in ridiculously impossible situations to built a dramatic rescue, escape, or victory. Unfortunately the drama often isn't there. Instead you feel like you are being subjected to endless incompentence and bad luck on the part of the heros, and ridiculous displays of power by the bad guys, and getting nothing in return. The misery drags on for chapter after chapter, while the victories are always wrapped up in a few pages. Very frustrating.

The plot is also full of inumerable holes and missing justifications. Why in the world does Admiral Willis drop General Lanyon off at Earth? Why are the flame-creatures so ridiculously powerful? Why does the mage imperator set off with only a single warliner? Why are the people of Earth so incredibly gullible and stupid? With the information given it is very implausible that the Chairman could have stayed in office this long. Far too much of the book's villany is wrapped up in this one man. Any number of people could have easily assasinated him 3 books ago and ended the entire drama (he apparently has NO bodyguard). Meanwhile the mage imperator has hundreds of bodyguards but they turn out to be completely useless time and again.

Just a lot of missing elements. Every planet feels like it's no larger than a mid-size city. Planetary populations are repeatedly described in the low millions, where are all the people? Everything revolves around individual characters, there are almost no institutions or organizations that play any role.

Most good space opera has brilliant + lucky heros and devious + calculating villians. This series is more along the lines of bumbling + unlucky heros and irrational+lucky villians. Very odd.


Overall the series is interesting and builds a lot of anticipation, but just dissapoints again and again. It definetly rides on the strength of the characters rather than the plot.

Totally gree with others who found this series to be a bloated never ending saga meandering it's way to nowhere. Mr Anderson has taken what started out as a reasonable plot for a 3 volume trilogy and painfully bloated it with rambling irrelevancies to extend it accross 7 volumes. I found books 1 and 2 worthwhile but books 3,4,5 and 6 of the series have been a real struggle to get through and have covered no more of the story than what could have easily been delivered in a single book. Even though there is only one more book to come to complete this series I won't be buying it.

The snippets on the back cover evoke Star Wars, which in this context is entirely appropriate. For the sake of discussion, classify the first three Star Wars movies (Episodes IV-VI) as space opera, with an emphasis on stereotypical characters doing stereotypical things, without much concern about how the 'fiction' relates to the development of society. Take the next three movies (I-III) as shallower space opera, with less character development, more explosions, more fantasy, and less science.

If you extrapolate that trend, Metal Swarm is at the far end of the graph. One should not call this science fiction, it is more like future fantasy; while that is not necessarily a problem, anyone looking for actual science fiction should understand upfront that this is not it.

I don't want to get too deeply into the problems with this book, because I don't feel like I am the intended audience: if you enjoyed the previous books in this series, I have no doubt that you will enjoy this novel, as it is a safe assumption that the earlier books are cut from the same literary cloth. Full disclosure: Metal Swarm is my first exposure to the Saga of Seven Suns series, and it is very likely to be my last.

If you want an engaging story with compelling characters, look elsewhere. The pieces within Metal Swarm are just going through the motions, and don't give you much of an opportunity to care about their fate.

I would like to offer an overall review of all seven books combined. Even though each book has its own sub-plots, one has to read all seven to stitch every piece together. Unless you plan to read all of them (a major time commitment) I suggest that you go find yourself something shorter to read. This is an epic saga.

I find the books and the story hard to classify. It is science fiction, but what kind? The story starts as if it is going to be hard science fiction. (That's why I probably consider the first book to be the best.) But then it degenerates into several parallel threads, many of which are pure fantasies. By the end of the seventh book, I felt that 90% of the threads and plot were more appropriately described as fantasy than science fiction.

Even if you prefer fantasy over hard science fiction, you will still be disappointed by the repeated "deus ex machina" saving the day. I count seven such cases, three of them occurring in the last volume. Anderson is very good in weaving a complex story to its crescendo and creating a very tense (nearly hopeless) situation for the heroes. Then he cannot get them out of there in any plausible way, and he resorts to dues ex machina time after time. Because of that, you will feel disappointed (perhaps even cheated) once you finish the story, even if you will find it entertaining most of the way.

The characters are one-dimensional. There are good sub-plots of love, hatred, betrayal, revenge... The evil is really evil, and the good-guys could do no wrong. If you don't mind that, you may enjoy the saga.

The book is quite reminiscent of Book One in the series, lots of exposition, little in the way of the epic action seen in Books 2-5. The author seems to have the same problem as many other writers who ink multi-novel arcs. What do you do when a major climax in action (though not neccesarily plot) occurs in the middle? The book picks up toward the end, though with several problematic plot developments that remind the reader of the Wheel of Time's infamous latter books. I disagree completely with the reviewer who stated that the author is "milking it". He stated from Day One that this was a seven book series and has stuck to that plan. I look forward to seeing how he concludes this series in book seven.

Only one more book to go.

Often during the reviews of this series I cite how timeline is a terrible distraction. The Pregnancy that has gone on forever is now finally over. How a second problem that the author thinks is a triumph is the short vignettes of everyone's story. That still plagues us.

How as a political treatise we have a meglomaniac ruling earth without a checks and balance system. Still the Chairman gets away with terrible horrors and no one stops him.

A new item has come to the surface and that is the absence of death. In a story with so many heroes, killing some of them would seem to be natural. Especially with so many chances that they should die. Some of the horrors that our heroes face are such that cheating death should not be an option. But here very few have died.

For a successful author who certainly has a great deal of royalties form his other successes, one should believe that Anderson had the time to devote to polishing the story. Sometimes it takes hours to get to a planet, and sometimes weeks. Sometimes days goes by in the threads of one hero and then another is picked up and it is a few moments since last we met.

This is a story that a map of the galaxy could not be given because the author creates devices he needs whenever he needs it. The same with the abilities of his alien adversaries. All that means to me the reader that logic is absent. Further causing the story to be ridiculous.

That it gains higher marks from me then before is that now as some of the storylines are finishing, I am happy for it, and have the tiniest bit of better perception. But I will be glad when it is all done.

In a nutshell, the stories, plotlines, and characters keep expanding. So, NO!!!! He is NOT milking the series!!!. There are no plots that are going sideways. All the plots and arcs are progressing FORWARD so I don't understand how anyone can say he is 'milking' the series. He is not.

He does so many things right, many authors can learn from him.

I love the action, plotlines, and pacing. Read this book in two days.\

The only 'slight' negative is that there are a couple of plotholes that sorta are annoying. He does attempt to explain them away but sometimes they don't ring true:

SPOILER ALERT ***like Jora'h going to Theroc with just one ship?***

Of course, it was vital for the whole plot, so I suspended some disbelief there, but it is a plothole nonetheless. Otherwise, if there were no plotholes, I'd easily rate this 5 stars. But since there were a couple of semi-minor ones, I give it 4 stars.

KJA, so glad I stuck with the series, can't wait to get the last book this weekend.

You've got a reader for life.