Customer Reviews

Voyage to Eneh (Seas of Kilmoyn)

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This is touted as "A thrilling novel of military science fiction." It is set on a distant planet where the furry humanoid inhabitants have technology roughly equivalent to the late 19th century on Earth: steamships, telegraph, gatling guns, railroads, etc. A disabled starship from Earth was stranded on Kilmoyn 60 years ago, with some 10,000 humans (mostly as frozen embryos.) The Earth folk keep their superior technology secret, and have formed an alliance with an island republic that has a strong seafaring tradition.

The book is clearly intended as the first of a series. It starts rather slowly, with a lot of exposition. This is a necessary evil, not only to introduce the main characters, but also the complicated politics of Kilmoyn.

Once past the first half, the pace picks up, and it is a generally good read. I'll certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for the sequels.

Tor Books could have done a better job. The proofreading is very rough...can't remember a book with so many typos. It could really use some maps as well. It does have a handy glossary and "dramatis personae" list.

When I read in the description that this book was about the 'muddle of politics' on Eneh, I had no idea how literally true this was going to be. The multitude of factions were never clearly explained, and there are so many of them I found myself constantly asking who the hell THESE people now were. It didn't help any that the author continually referred to them by varying names. Imperials, Empire, Republic, Kertovans (which is also one of the races) all seemed to indicate the same side I believe. Why they're on a mission to do whatever it is they're trying to do isn't really clear, and why anyone is trying to stop them also isn't clear.

The battles that took place were usually between groups where I did not know why or what either side was quite fighting for and so ended up being kind of meaningless to me. Not only this, the combat sequences themselves were so poorly described I had difficulty visualizing how any battle was going. Who was winning, their battlefield positions, etc.

All in all this book was just a complete waste of time. I only finished it because I'm OCD enough to have to always finish books that I start, even if they're as bad as this one was.

I have having a hard time getting through the first half. I have actually laid the book down and read a tome on Spartan history if that is a clue as to how this story holds the reader's interest. The first chapters are confusing to me (and I have read 1000s of SF, fantasy, military history, world history books) and this has to rank in the top 10 confusing start for a story. Since I was 6 years old I have only laid one book permanently down and suspected it was bound incorrectly, but this is close to being number two.

What is going on is question in the first half of the book. I am online writing this because I suspected (wrongly) that there was a first novel about the setting I must have missed.