F/SF

humanity meets another alien race, which is seemingly bent on total domination of all life. Centers around the Cavanaugh family- warriors, politicians and doctors. ( )

I tried to read and like this book. I forced myself to get to the half way point before I finally gave up. It just moves too slow. I could put it down, walk away for a month, then come back and still not care.

Sorry, just not my type of book ( )

Deep in outer space, humans come across some ships belonging to never-before-encountered aliens. They attempt to open friendly communications, but the aliens respond by attacking, and quickly prove themselves frighteningly superior in battle. There is only one survivor: Pheylan Cavanagh, who is taken prisoner by the aliens. When the military realizes his body is still unaccounted for, they refuse to go an look for him (for what, admittedly, seem to me like pretty good reasons). His family won't take no for an answer, though and set out to stage their own rescue operation. Meanwhile, the humans and other species of the galaxy prepare themselves for war.

I think this kind of SF story -- I suppose I'd call it a sort of lightweight space opera -- is much less to my taste these days than when I was young. Or, perhaps more accurately, I have higher standards for it now. So at first, I was pleasantly surprised by this. The premise, although it's not the most original in the history of SF, was interesting enough, and I was genuinely curious about the aliens and their motivations. I approved of the world-building, too. The technology feels believable without being over-explained, and there's a sense that this universe is big and complicated and has a lot of history. And while the prose is very, very far from being great literature, it lacks the extreme clunkiness you sometimes get in this sort of thing. So I was finding it a quick, fairly entertaining read.

And then, maybe halfway through, I just started losing interest rapidly. What Pheylan's family was up to got more attention by far than him or the aliens, and to me that was a far less interesting story, especially as it became increasingly rambly and full of implausibilities. The most irritating of which is that nobody in this universe -- and I mean nobody -- seems to have any concept of security, and our heroes have no trouble whatsoever randomly stumbling onto any piece of information that the author wants them (or us) to have. By the time we got to the aliens -- not the attacking ones, I should note -- who blithely showed everybody around their secret spaceport and then left their battle plans sitting out on a table, my suspension of disbelief was whimpering loudly under the strain.

And then the thing just kind of ends, with most of the major plot threads dangling and all the mysteries unsolved, presumably to be addressed in the next two books in the series. In fact, on reflection, this volume feels like its main purpose is as setup for whatever comes next. But, although I am curious and, whatever its faults, this one was readable enough, I don't think I'm going to bother with the rest of the series. ( )

This entire series held my attention from start to end. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys of good space yarn. While the world-building might not be as complex as some of the great space operas, I enjoyed this almost more. Each characters was well-defined, with depth and flaws. The plot moved at a fast pace with twists and turns and humor and ups'n'downs. Excellent and enjoyable! ( )