Three Unbroken (Celestial Empire 3) [Paperback]

Chris Roberson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Solaris (February 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844167070
• ISBN-13: 978-1844167074
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,924,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Roberson's novels include Here, There & Everywhere, The Voyage of Night Shining White, Paragaea: A Planetary Romance, X-Men: The Return, Set the Seas on Fire, and the forthcoming End of the Century, Iron Jaw and Hummingbird, and The Dragon's Nine Sons. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as Asimov's Science Fiction, Postscripts, and Subterranean, and in anthologies such as Live Without a Net, The Many Faces of Van Helsing, FutureShocks, and Forbidden Planets. Along with his business partner and spouse Allison Baker, he is the publisher of MonkeyBrain Books, an independent publishing house specializing in genre fiction and nonfiction genre studies, and he is the editor of the Adventure anthology series. He has been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award three times: once each for writing, publishing, and editing; twice a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; and twice for the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Short Form (winning in 2004 with his story 'O One').

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating alternate history, May 8, 2009

By 

J. S. Harbour (Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three Unbroken (Novel of Celestial Empire) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have enjoyed this new alternate history series from Chris Roberson, which began with The Dragon's Nine Suns, and continues now in Three Unbroken. The action is fast paced, the characters well developed and easy to relate to. I enjoy learning about Chinese culture and traditions without knowing much about it otherwise. I give this 5 stars not because it's great literature, or even great science fiction, but because it's a page turner and, like Nine Suns, it has a rather simple plot without too many layers to peel in order to understand it. In other words, there is very little diversionary writing here, very few sub-plots, and only three threads (the three main characters) inter-woven through the story. The ending is satisfying. This is a good read for a wide range of age groups, from pre-teen through aged adult. After throwing out the rubbish being written by over-hyped "greats" (yeah right) like Stephen Baxter, who really knows how to write rubbish, I find Roberson to be refreshing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Roberson shows why he's an entertaining SF writer, October 10, 2009

By 

Jvstin "Paul Weimer" (Circle Pines, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Three Unbroken (Novel of Celestial Empire) (Mass Market Paperback)

I mentioned in a review of The Dragons' Nine Sons that Roberson's marriage of AH science fiction with space opera in the off-planet stories of his Celestial Empire world is a tasty combination that pays dividends for the reason.

Set at about the same time as The Dragons' Nine Sons, Three Unbroken is another novel of the Chinese-Aztec war around Mars. While the Dragon's Nine Sons took its inspiration from "The Dirty Dozen", the inspiration for Three Unbroken is "Band of Brothers". In an afterword, Roberson confirms my suspicions that Ambrose's work was a major influence on this novel.

Three Unbroken tells the story of a trio of soldiers of the Chinese military forces: a female Indian bomber pilot, a Texan infantryman and a Manchu nobleman who becomes a commando. The novel follows their stories in the War against the Aztecs on Mars until the explosive (and given that this is based on WWII, very appropriate) finale.

The novel also takes physical and thematic inspiration from the I Ching. The novel is divided into 64 chapters, one for every line of the divination device. The ideas and concepts from the I Ching are reflected in the events of each chapter. While I am not an expert on the I Ching, I did see the parallels. Roberson does a good job of lining up the events to the I Ching lines without making it seem forced.

Overall, the novels show the development of the soldiers into masters of their arts. Sticking to the mostly low level viewpoint, instead of just the Grand Strategy, Roberson shows the individual soldier's point of view of war, and shows it well. We get some battle and action sequences for all three soldiers, too. Each of the soldiers is challenged, and learns that War is often a matter of not just grit and combat, but the Unexpected.

Once again, as I have said in other reviews of Roberson's work, while his work might not be as literary as some other SF writers, Roberson knows how to write entertaining and interesting science fiction. Fans of his work will be quite satisfied with Three Unbroken and I think its a good (although The Dragon's Nine Sons might be slightly better) way to get introduced to his Chinese Empire AH stories and novels.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Premise and a Solid Read, October 10, 2009

By 

Russell Clothier (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three Unbroken (Celestial Empire 3) (Paperback)

I hadn't planned on reviewing this book, but it deserves more credit than the 1-star reviews have given it, so I'm going to chip in a 4-star thumbs up. I thoroughly enjoyed Three Unbroken. The alternative history, in which the Chinese and Aztecs become the dominant world powers, is well reasoned and quite believable. If the 15th century expansionist emperors had continued their policy, the Chinese probably WOULD have discovered America, and prevented the Europeans from confronting the Aztecs. From there, we could easily have ended up with the world of Three Unbroken. The story itself is fairly standard military sci-fi: a lot of action and gunplay, with somewhat flat characters. But the fun part is discovering the cultural differences and similarities between our world and theirs. It's not the best book ever written, but it does make for an interesting read. I would recommend reading the first book, "The Emperor's Nine Sons," before this one, to better understand the back story.