I found this book years ago in the bookstore not long after it had been published, and was intrigued by the cover art and the summary on the back. The..Show More »n, years later, I read the first book mainly just so I could get to this one. The first book wasn't that bad for an author's first work. For this one, however, I cannot be so forgiving.

First of all, this book is simply boring. This is due partially to the actual events but also to the author's lack of experience as a writer. The writing style is awkward and makes it hard to easily follow what's happening. To complicate matters, many things just aren't adequately explained, while others get needlessly repeated over and over again. Finally, the book is far too long and wordy, as many have pointed out, with about 150 pages in the middle that should have been truncated.

I dont care for the narrator's voice at all, either here or in the Honor Harrington series. She sounds too newsy for me. She breaks into GLaDOS mode when voicing some of the aliens, especially when you listen on fast speeds (which you probably will do).

This book is a typical average 90s-early 2000s scifi and doesn't hold up well against the changing times. This is not hard science fiction; it is a Lucasian fantasy set in space. Little attention is given to the tech or the alien races (except the Draspk), and at times it seems as though Czernida herself wasn't sure what the rules are, but is just fudging things through. It attempts to be part romance, but the angst going on and the awkward and contrived barrier that keeps the characters apart makes the whole thing a big mess.

This book suffers from the classic "sophomore slump" that is so well known, and you should probably skip it and go straight to the third volume since you won't really miss much.

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This book is about as boring as listening to someone read the phone book, and the narrator makes it feel like she's doing just that. After listening t..Show More »o Ties of Power, I knew I was in for more of the same, but like a sucker, I had gone ahead and bought this one in advance, so I forced myself through the torture of this listen.

I dislike just about everything about these last couple of books. I don't like Czernida's writing style, her dialogue, the aliens she comes up with, the silly cultural things that are forced into the plot, and I don't even care about the characters, for crying out loud. Sira gets kidnapped again - of course - because she is so completely helpless and clueless about everything, in spite of being something like 70 years old and the leader of her entire race, not to mention the most powerful member in the Clan's entire history. Her husband takes his sweet time getting to her, engaging in pointless side plot stuff that nobody cares about and alien stuff I couldn't even understand.

This is average Star Trek-style 90's-2000's level sci fi. There's no real sense of a living galaxy outside of the main few characters and their concerns. The aliens, as I mentioned before, are so unrealistic as to be laughable compared to today's standards. "Clan" are so obviously human-derivative yet they think themselves far superior and completely foreign, while a crab-type alien thinks to itself expressions such as "on the other claw...". Come on, seriously? Throw me out of the story, why don't you!

If you read the first book in this series and enjoyed it, please, please stop there. It only goes downhill after that.

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