Jonathan

Rather disjoint

Reviewed: 05-31-19

I was reticent to listen to this book after purchasing it because of the way in which the Honor Harrington series of books have declined over time. 'On Basilisk Station' was a good book. Since then the series has slumped - the novels are increasingly preachy and have long narratives (mostly in the form of someone's thought which span tens of minutes of audio book in the time that they realise they've taken just a little too long to respond to someone else) which indicate that either the author thinks the plot is too complicated or that the audience isn't smart enough to follow along. Probably both are true.

The author prevents listeners from thinking about scenarios by having the protagonists hash out the situations in depth but they ignore obvious alternatives. And there's the 'invention of hysteria' when situations arise in which no sane person would find an ethical dilemma, but somehow the story does. The series suffers a little much from two dimensional tactics when a little of the third dimension available in space would change situations drastically. And after listening to many many books with the people of the star nation called "manTICoran", it just sounds wrong to hear them being called "mantiCORan". Even if it was a blunder initially, it should have been left alone for consistency.

The book seems to be a collection of short stories tied together with long narratives. There is an underlying timeline and connection but you have events arising in disparate locations with disparate protagonists which are the predominance of the book. The overall feeling that one is left with is that the book lacks a strong storyline since the varies pieces aren't pulled together very well. The heroine of the series does nothing until the end. For the majority of the book she wafts from social occasion to social occasion espousing drivel. At the end of the book she almost needs to be physically restrained from commiting atrocities similar to the ones that have her enraged in the first place. I suppose that this was meant to reflect how deeply hurt she was by preceding events but rather it make her seem diminuative and petty - certainly not one of "uncompromising honor" that the title suggests. Of course she is "uncompromising" but honourable? Hard to say that of one who is looking for any excuse to wipe out the opposition.

Some things bother me about the series in general.
Firstly, the absolute nobility of the warrior. Anyone who fights is noble just because they fight (provided that they adhere to the recognised standards of war). It doesn't strike me that anyone should be regarded as noble just because they killed someone else.
Secondly, the accuracy of the missiles is ridiculous (from a practical point of view). Its just bizarre that every missile hits what its shot at. Sure some lose lock because of the decoys and other ECM, some hit the impenetrable gravitational bands, and others are twisted/bent by the side walls. Otherwise, every bomb pumped laser hits its target. To put this in context/perspective, a typical stand off range might be 30,000km (sometimes more, sometimes less) with a battle cruiser being 1.5km in length. the battle cruiser (side on) subtends and angle of less than 0.003 degrees at that range. Any "multiple hits" from a single warhead must necessarily be essentially parallel - but they're described as a porcupine. And the angle subtended down the throat of the wedge is much smaller since the ships are spindle shaped. Its hard to suspend belief enough for that kind of accuracy to make sense.
Given the accuracy I don't understand why "impeller ships or drones or platforms " are not routinely deployed just outside the interference zone of the capital ships to protect their throat and sides since an impenetrable band remains impenetrable.
Thirdly, the basis for a lot of activity is what the newsies report - but it seems to be near monolithic in the solarian league for the mandarins to get away with their actions.

Overall the story is OK. nothing to get excited about. I would rather not know about what's happening in other spheres so that the tension of the allies predominates. But the perspectives of everyone involved seems to be par for the course. I feel that these are not necessary and detract from a good story.

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5 people found this helpful

Twisted tale maybe breaks from too many twists?

Reviewed: 12-15-17

I really like Brandon Sanderson's work. I don't think that this is his best work. At least it didn't quite come together for me. It is a very good story in an awesome universe but its not the awesome story I was hoping/longing for.

There are perhaps too many side stories that don't really add to the main plot or to the universe in general to warrant their place in the book resulting in some muddying of the main plot. One of the main protagonists (Kaladin) breaks in a way/through a means which seems inconsistent with the character that's been developed through the series; and the manner in which he comes back should have been with much more resolve like speaking the final oath yet that never happens.

The petty squabbling of the other rulers is overdone by making the nations one dimensional (only one has merchants, only one is good at administration, only one is good at fighting...) and the reasons for the breakdown of the coalition of nations are a bit weak given what they're fighting for.

Too many side questions are held on to for too long like "who are the void bringers?", "what is the real importance of an oath?", "who are these gods?, "what's the difference between lies and truth to shallon's cryptic sprin?", "just who is this wit character?" and the suspense dies a little from exhaustion in a book that's nearly two and a half days of listening time. And some parts of the plot don't make great sense, particularly the climax given that odium is able to foresee (some of) the future. Some parts of the plot could have been left to the readers imagination with a better result - in particular the trek through shadesmar (when you just know they're going to get to place they need to be just in the nick of time) which was little more than a side story around kaladins mental/emotional recovery.

The story seemed to be reaching its climax in the fight for the capitol but abruptly spirals down to start building up again in another twist. I think that plot construct wasted too much energy and the story was a bit tired afterwards.

As for the narrators, I wish they would spend some time together getting pronunciation identical and giving similar types of accents for the same character so its less jarring when a character speaks using a different narrator. This book isn't particularly bad but its still there so perhaps I'm overly sensitive to it from past experience.

These observations do not detract from a very good story that is well worth the price and well worth the listen, although I think its about 20% too long. They just stop it from being an awesome story. Sorry Brandon, you set the bar very very high and didn't quite get there this time. You gave me a dream that wasn't quite fulfilled in this story.

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3 people found this helpful

A bit too simplistic

Reviewed: 07-30-14

The book started off really well. I was looking forward to a good listen, but it didn't really live up to the expectation.

I think that the problem I discovered was the simplicity of the story line. The line is too thin and too straight. There's no real branching. Nothing much happens in parallel. There's not too many twists. The plot develops simply. The main character suddenly and inexplicitly rises to the next level after each challenge.

There are holes in the plot which just leaps ahead without much in between and there is a rush of events. For example the protagonist arrives at court and is suddenly the centre of attention. Everything seems to happen within a handful of days, with almost no intervening time for thoughts or emotions to develop. Just struck me as odd

The story had a lot more potential which could have been realised with just a bit more attention. I'm glad that it only cost me half a credit. Not sure that I would pay a full credit for others in the series.

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4 people found this helpful

Too many committees

Reviewed: 07-21-14

The storyline is interesting. It is hampered because the mechanism used to convey information to the reader is discussions between the various protagonists. Unfortunately there are way too many of these and the entire discussion is portrayed sometimes in agonising detail causing the story to drag.

The performance makes this even worse because different people are identified by accents even though they all speak the same language natively (apparently). Unfortunately every person with an accent is spoken much slower than others and causes the conversations to be drawn out even more.

If you can overlook these major failings then the story is reasonably entertaining.

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Huge turn of the tables

Reviewed: 07-11-14

This is the fourth in the series about the crew of the odyssey though since that starship has been destroyed perhaps a different name is appropriate for the ongoing series.

If you don't know the series then you shouldn't listen to this book (until you listen to the earlier ones) because it won't make sense and is not intended as a stand alone book. What was really confusing in the third book [the battle of sol] was how the drasin who were formidable foes as single ships suddenly were destroyed en masse by the same ships that were lucky to take on or two - new weapons aside.

Anyhow the battlefield has moved to the earth and initially new york city. Strangely the drasin don't seem to be trying hard to win and the reason that is eventually given is not exactly convincing. Afterall if the goal of the drasin is to wipe out all non drasin life in the universe then it I for one don't get why they wouldn't just do that one star system at time starting with the one at hand. But then they're aliens and who knows how they think...

As you can guess fortunes wax and wane so that there are ever increasing difficulties for the terrans to counter and overcome - and that's the whole plot. At the end there is some more space battles and like previous books in this series those battles are lacking realism. In space travelling at relativistic speed (significant fractions of the speed of light) it seems reasonable over the huge distances involved that some of the shots would miss. In fact it seems likely that in general most shots fired at distances measured in light seconds or minutes would miss unless you could aim and track your laser with a precision that could be measured in fractions of a degree to fifty or a hundred decimal places. Other flaws in the science part of the fiction include the fact that you can use tachyon cannons within a gravity well but not the transition drive... not sure why not since its the same technology. And the fighters seem to be able to arc and get back to the ship extraordinarily quickly when they've been travelling away for significant periods.

From a plot point of view it didn't really make sense that the ships returning knew that there were of the order of 1500 drasin ships in the system when they left and only come prepared to deal with about a third that number on return.

Despite these limitations I did enjoy the book. I didn't see the point of the gaia gestalt who played little or no part in the story of any significance. In fact the story would have been no different if she wasn't there at all. But I suppose the best commendation I can give the book is that I would buy the next one in the series so if you listened to the previous books in this series and liked them then this is more of the same with a focus on planet based skirmishes.

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Not the best point of view

Reviewed: 07-11-14

The ideas behind the stormlight archive are really interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series. I was very excited to read this one as well and am eagerly looking forward to others. Each book is written from the point of view of several characters with one of those characters being the pre-eminent one in the book. In the first book that was Kaladin and in this one it is Shallan.

I found Shallan to be an unimpressive character - overly self absorbed and tiresome coming across somewhat pathetic. I was continually waiting for the sections from her point of view to conclude so I could become enthralled again in what Kaladin was up to. Perhaps the female narrator didn't help to make her seem worthwhile.

The story is awesome and well worth reading for anyone who enjoys fantasy. The world is rich and complex and well thought out. So much so that even though the sections of Shallan leave a lot to be desired, the rest of the book more than makes up for it.

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Concluding the adventure

Reviewed: 05-05-14

The main ingredient (it seems) for an adventure story is a bit of missing information. That might be something misunderstood (or rather poorly explained by the author) or confusing and protagonists and antagonists rush around trying to figure out what that missing piece of information actually means. This story is no different. The hidden information is not particularly well hidden (or surprising) giving the story a bit of blandness - it would help if there was some significant meaning behind the actions of the elves. There is little complexity in the characters - they are all true to (a very simple) form. There is a grand adventure (to find out the truth) wherein most of the characters that we have come to know are regarded as expendable. Every one of the long line of bad guys meet their demise during the story. And since their characters are not well developed its a bit hard to shed any tears. This is not a book for those who want a well developed story and characters. But not a bad listen if your expectations are not too high.

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1 person found this helpful

A tale of two books

Reviewed: 05-05-14

This audio book is two books in one. I have read reviews of the novels being too boiler plate and predictable. To some extent that is true, but I think those critics are too harsh. Make no mistake, the people in the stories are very one-dimensional and they struggle to escape from a predictable outcome. However the story is easy to listen to and while not rollicking, a pleasant adventure. Certainly this is not a book for people who want complexity and intrigue but less fussy listeners can enjoy this book without too much trouble.

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1 person found this helpful

A tale of two more books

Reviewed: 05-05-14

Two more books in one. The characters in these novels develop a bit more complexity than the previous pair of novels but still there is not a lot of development. It surprises me how the author assumes so much naivety on the part of the people to allow massive conspiracies to take place in complete ignorance. Of course there are only two people that can be turned to fight the conspirators. The plot doesn't twist too much and the outcomes are fairly predictable. Completely new people groups and lore are invented on the fly as necessary to add coherence to the story. There is still a lacking depth and those who want complexity and intrigue will want to pass over this novel. For others its still a good read and the exploits of our favourite heroes is interesting as they plod through a "not too challenging" adventure.

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1 person found this helpful

Good listen but disappointing ending

Reviewed: 02-05-14

Any additional comments?

The story follows from the previous books. Sometimes the flipping back between the present and the past seems excessive. Most of the loose ends are tied together. The ending was broadcast well in advance. It didn't quite happen as I would have expected (which was that Jorg's convictions were manipulating reality to produce the dead king, especially since the guilt of hanging in the thorn bush and not saving his brother/mother is an underlying issue throughout the series). In the end the actual ending was a bit deficient. and the equality of dream and reality doesn't quite explain how the link between conviction and reality is 'fixed' at the end.

In any case the book is worth listening to, especially after the other books.

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