Customer Reviews

Webdancers (Timeweb Chronicles)

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The Timeweb that links time and space in the galaxy is rapidly deteriorating. If this cosmic transportation infrastructure should disintegrate as the trends currently seem, the galaxy could collapse into something not much removed from the Stone Age; that is if it survives as nobody knows what the devastation will be.

While galactic ecologist Noah Watanabe tries to prevent the cosmic eco disaster, his interactions with the Timeweb has changed him from human to something else. At the same time Noah heroically works on saving the Timeweb, war is imminent between the Hib-Adu Coalition and the newly formed allies the Merchant Prince Alliance humans and the Mutati Kingdom shape-shifters, who were enemies before their mutual cooperation to stop their common foe. Time is running out on all fronts as Noah struggles to keep the web from destruction which would release unknown energy forces across the galaxy leaving behind nothing but dust.

The third and final Timeweb Chronicles outer space adventure (see TIMEWEB and THE WEB AND THE STARS) is an exciting tale that never slows down as the two major subplots begin to merge into what looks like a cataclysmic end to the galaxy. The fast-paced story line is diminished somewhat by having two significant threats in which either could turn the galaxy into dust; the parts overwhelm the sum so that neither comes across as cosmic as intended. Still Brian Herbert finishes the Timeweb Chronicles with a doomsday scenario with the only hope to avoid the Big Crunch being Noah.

Harriet Klausner

This book was a dissapointment. The first 2 books were a good light read that left you hanging to see how the saga would end. The premise and underlying ecological message were not up to those in Brian Herbet's fathers creations but overall the books told a good story that had you turning the pages. This third book has some serious flaws that makes you wonder if anyone edited the book for Mr. Herbert prior to publishing. Facts in the storying line that were secret to most characters in one chapter are suddenly common knowledge in another chapter. In the final chapters, characters and whole planets that were destroyed earlier in the timeline come back into the story without explantion. These books also gave you the feeling the plot was building towards some revelation or twist at the end of the story. This was not the case. The whole epic ending seemed too fantastic and predictable (superman to the rescue). It left me feeling dissappointed with the entire series of books.

When creating a benevolent character who's much, much more powerful than everyone else around him, there are three main ways of inhibiting him: give him a philosophy that restricts when he'll interfere (The Watcher in Marvel Comics), give him an exploitable weakness (Superman), or make him a total idiot (Peter on the TV show "Heroes.") Brian Herbert uses none of these, so it's to his credit that for two whole books the mysterious but amazing abilities of Noah Watanabe didn't seriously impact the storyline. But by the time the "primal energy" is introduced, Noah becomes just another Marty Stu--a well-thought-out, psychologically complicated one, but a Marty Stu nonetheless. And let's not get into the psychological changes various characters abruptly make to facilitate the plotline (or, for the matter, the complete undermining of the previous books' message that ugliness does not equal evil.)