wyntrchylde's reviews
631 reviews

Hellhole
By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Publisher: Tor
Published In: New York, NY
Date: 2011
Pgs: 532

Summary:
Hellhole, the last stop for those trying to make a new start. A shattered world subjected to an asteroid impact in the recent geologic past. The end of the line in the Deep Zone, the recently colonized part of The Constellation. Here the rebel General Adolphus is exiled. Expected to fail and die on the hellish planet, the General makes a go of it. Abiding by his terms of surrender…until he is ready to again try to free the people from the feudal, tyrannical Constellation. Finding survivors of the alien species who made Hellhole home in the pre-apocalypse, the General plots. And the Diadem suspects. And the turmoil ensues. The Constellation’s 2nd Civil War is coming. Aliens exist. Mankind is at a crossroads.

Genre:
Militaria, science fiction, epic scope

Main Character:
General Tiber Adolphus

Favorite Character:
Vincent. He resists the peer pressure to jump into the slickwater and accept a half-alien life. He stays true to himself.

Least Favorite Character:
Diadem Michella Ducenet. She’s a bit of a one note villain who gets a lot of screen time. Would have been better served with making the Black Lord Selik Riomini a bigger villain. While Michella was shrewish, her daughter Keana comes across as a flighty, spoiled child of privilege with no concept of the “real” world.

Favorite Scene:
When Adolphus stands on his principles early in the book and acting morally surrenders his fleet rather than fire on the Constellation ships filled with human shields.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The fate of Fernando and the delegation to Sonjerra. Seems like more was intended by the way they met their end and what happened immediately afterward.

Last Page Sound:
Where’s the climax? I read this whole thing and the story doesn’t end. It just sets up for the next book in the series. This sucks.

Author Assessment:
This may be the last book I read by these two gentlemen.

Disposition of Book:
Half Price Book it…if I don’t burn it.

Inferno
By Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Publisher: Orb Books
Published In: New York, NY
Date: 1976
Pgs: 237

Summary:
Imagine not being able to feel anything...not being able to see anything. And it goes on...and on...seemingly forever. Until you call out to God, and you feel the bottle open and you are poured out from your own private Hell into Hell. Benito has rescued you. And he has a plan. All you have to do is follow him downward through the deeper and darker sections of Dante’s Hell in search of the way out. All you have to do is follow...and not fall victim to the guilt that you belong in any of those lower depths with the damned souls trapped there. That’s all.

Genre:
Science fiction, quest, good vs. evil

Main Character:
Allen Carpenter

Favorite Character:
Allen Carpenter is us. We walk through Hell in his shoes.

Least Favorite Character:
This was a rare book where I liked all the characters.

Favorite Scene:
When Lucifer looks down at Allen and asks him the question.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
This is pretty tightly plotted and the OOC moments are thin.

Last Page Sound:
Mmmmm...that’s good. I just hope that the recently produced sequel is as good.

Author Assessment:
They are tremendous together.

Disposition of Book:
Keeping it and re-reading it. Possibly sooner rather than later. It’s a rich tapestry of a story.

Escape from Hell
By Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Publisher: Tor
Published In: New York, New York, USA
Date: 2009
Pgs: 332

Summary:
Allen has escaped hell once already, but he is haunted. He needs to liberate those souls he feels are being unfairly tortured and confined. He is on a mission to harrow hell and free the deserving damned. The question is, “Now that he has returned to Hell, can he leave again.”

Genre:
Dogma, religion, redemption, good vs. evil

Main Character:
Allen Carpenter…re: Carpentier

Favorite Character:
It has to be Allen. A science fiction writer who died and found himself in hell. And now seeks meaning and redemption while exploring hell and freeing those he feels deserve it.

Least Favorite Character:
Rosemary. She seems intent on repeating her mistakes from her previous life.

Favorite Scene:
It has to be the Oppenheimer scene in the climax. Helluva climax.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
It seemed like there were too many characters disappearing from the troupe in too short a number of pages through the third quarter of the book. It didn’t feel rushed. It just seemed like someone was missing. Not something I can put my finger on exactly.

Last Page Sound:
This leaves me with a very similar feeling to what I had at the end of the first book, Inferno. It’s an ending with a wide open future stretching before it. But not in the sense that the story isn’t complete. The story is, in its way, complete. But there is a doorway to more.

Author Assessment:
I love them. I will read anything that they write together.

Disposition of Book:
Keep it

Cauldron
The Academy (Priscilla Hutchins) Novels #6
By Jack McDevitt

Publisher: Ace Books, The Berkley Publishing Group, Penguin Group
Published In: New York, USA
Date: 2007
Pgs: 373

Summary:
In 2255, the Academy that trained pilots and sent missions into space is gone. The efforts in space have changed. For profit missions…very little pure science. The privately funded Prometheus Foundation is one of the only entities still devoted to deep space exploration. The Hazeltine Drive has been getting humanity between the stars for a number of years. But now an upstart physicist has taken a discounted theory and turned it into a new, faster way to get around. The universe is opening. And the origins of the civilization destroying Omega clouds may finally be within reach.

Genre:
Science fiction, space opera

Main Character:
Priscilla Hutchins though for much of the book you wouldn’t have guessed that it was her.

Favorite Character:
Antonio. The Dr. Science journalist is a great character.

Least Favorite Character:
Rudy. Not sure if it was the space madness or if he was just a 5th wheel and was intended for what happened for the get go. His character was a little bit of all over the place.

Favorite Scene:
“Hutch, get clear. Do it now. Get out of there. Up ahead. It’s watching you.”

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Rudy. I’ll just leave him at that. His character was fine up until the transit in Locarno/Barber/Silvestri Space. Would have probably went down better, if he’d had a bit of space narcosis or something instead of the way that it went.

Last Page Sound:
I really liked this book. It picks up pacing all the way through and it is kicking pretty good when you get to the end.

Author Assessment:
Definitely be reading this author again.

Disposition of Book:
This is a keep it and re-read it book. I might even have to look into some other books in this series. This is the best kind of series book. You don’t even have to be aware that it is part of a series to read it and enjoy it. This book stands on its own quite well and while it does reference things that happen in other books, it explains them in such a way that you don’t have to read the other book to enjoy this one.

Dreadnought
By Robert K. Massie
Publisher: Random House
Published In: New York, NY
Date: 1991
Pgs: 1007

Summary:
This follows the lives and times of the movers and shakers in Britain and Germany in the lead up to World War One. The politicians and royals speeches and papers are used to give them voice as the shaping events move inexorably toward war. It begins with Trafalgar in 1805 and flows through the reign of Queen Victoria up to the declaration of war by the United Kingdom following the currents and foibles of the nations as they dance on the world stage.

Genre:
history, europe, world war 1

Main Character:
Emperor William II of Germany, Winston Churchill, Admiral Jacky Fisher

Favorite Character:
Call it a toss up between Winston and Jacky

Least Favorite Character:
Admiral Lord Charles Beresford who seemed to be more interested in his personal power exhibited through his defense of the status quo in the British Navy which could have been disastrous. And William II who seemed to play the spoiled royal grandson of Queen Victoria who was going to get his way in Germany, come hell or high water. He got both.

Favorite Scene:
When Churchill debates Beresford on the floor of the House of Commons.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
I know it exceeds the focus of the book on Britain and Germany and the growth of their navies in the prewar years, but I would have liked a bit more focus on French, Austrian, Russian, and Italian politicians and royals in the same candid vein the British and German were visited.

Last Page Sound:
Can’t believe I’m finally finished. And...that’s it? It closes with the Germans making it clear that they are going to cross through Belgium and violate their neutrality to attack France. Both things that the British couldn’t allow. The books ends without a shot fired. But if it would have gone to that point where would the stopping point have been...the book already clocked in at 1007 pages. All around a good book.

Author Assessment:
Excellent. If something else of his crosses my view, I will strongly consider reading it.

Disposition of Book:
I’m going to offer it to Sarah and if she doesn’t want it, I’m going to put it on my Half Price Books stack.

Ash Ock
By Christopher Hinz
Publisher: Tor
Published In: New York, NY
Date: 1989
Pgs: 341

Summary:
Earth is an irradiated light that shines in the sky. The Earthlings live in metal and glass cylinders orbiting the planet. After hundreds of years, the Earth is healing...slowly. She survived the hammer blows of biological contamination, radiation, and the wastefulness of Man. Man escaped to the cylinders with his genetic descendents on his heels. The Paratwa, believed destroyed many years ago, are returning. They escaped the apocalypse as well. The twin psycho killing genetic creatures in humanoid form are coming home. Man isn’t inclined to welcome them back. The Paratwa are coming.

Genre:
science fiction, genetics,

Main Character:
Gillian, the surviving tway of the Ash Ock paratwa, Empedocles, the soldier of the Royal Caste. The traitor. The hunter of other paratwa down history, spending time between outbreaks in a cryogenic hybernation matrix. The one who shouldn’t have survived his tway being killed. The one who may be losing his mind as he can hear Empedocles in his mind...and sometimes, he can see Catherine, his opposite tway who was killed during the Apocalypse. Empedocles wants to bring on the interlace and hold Gillian in his sway for the rest of their lives never letting him escape the whelm...if Empedocles is real, that is.

Favorite Character:
Nick...cause he’s just such a manipulative bastard.

Least Favorite Character:
Susan Quint. She’s very much a social climber and not much else early in the book. Now there are layers added to her personality later in the book, but by then, the impression is made.

Favorite Scene:
Probably the Honshu Massacre. I can see that attack on that transport terminal in my mind’s eye. It’s big science fiction and action movie awesome.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The ghost of Edward Huromonus. The character is mentioned a number of times, but never actually appears in the story.

Last Page Sound:
Not as good as the first book, Liege Killer, but still pretty damned good.

Author Assessment:
I would read something else by this author.

Disposition of Book:
Keep it. Re-read it.

Adventures was the wrong word to put in the title of this book. As presented he wasn't much of a swashbuckling figure though he did appear to be something of a sportsman. His trips to Africa and the Arctic are given short shrift. When he was in the Boer War, he was a visiting physician and sometime correspondent for the papers back in Britain.
Shrug.
Wasn't what I was expecting from the book.
And discovering that Arthur Conan Doyle was embarrassed by Sherlock was a "letting the air out of the balloon" moment for me.