The dullest text book you'll ever listen to...

I was given a free review copy of this audio book, at my request, and am voluntarily leaving this unbiased review.

In the dedication, the author dedicates this book to his sister who, like him (he says) also likes star wars. I can be forgiven then, for thinking, this would be an epic story, of exciting battles, emotional highs and lows, and maybe even some cheezy dialogue thrown in.

Instead I got a text book, of a history that hasn't happened. Events are described in painstaking detail, with emotionless candure and a formal writing style that I can only assume is due to Microsoft Word's spell check "fixing" things.

The author has seemingly spent a lot of time researching world military politics, tactics and borders. And in this he draws out a very detailed war, that encompasses armies from across the globe with all their weapons and technology at their disposal. I'm not sure I entirety agree with all the assumptions, but it is very well thought out and researched.

The story is told from a third person omnipotent POV, and literally describes the actions and dialogue of the characters. There is no inner thoughts, no emotions, no insight into the motivations of anyone in the whole book. I don't mean it's sparse or there's not enough, it's just plain missing.

The writing style is truly bizzare. No contractions, the dialog is written like robots communicating, and the narrative reads like a formal lecture. I wonder if it was written in English or if it is translated (poorly) into English. In any case it is so out of place in a novel it's distracting.

The voice acting, though I hesitate to call it acting, is just awful. Larry A. Brewer reads the text in one continuous monotone, with no infliction, no style and effort to bring the reader in. Humans and 2 alien races, and every voice is read the same, narration the same, chapter after chapter. While it would have been difficult for him to save this book, he could have at least given it more effort than reading a phone book. The audio quality was also poor, not quite full cassette tape hiss, but not far off. The edits where words and phrases had to be pasted in where also quite noticeable.

I gave the book 2 stars, because the idea isn't bad, it's been done, but it has worth. Unfortunately the author couldn't make a story out of it. He made a sequence of events, but a story that does not make. He wrote a dull, uninteresting text book and gave it to the most boring teacher you had in high school and had them read it to you.

I don't think the series can be saved, the concept is fairly well ruined. I will not be going any further with these books.

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