book rant
its been a while since i bothered to update this.. many update worthy things have no doubt happened.. but i will at least use this for a simple rant for a book i just finished.. Fire Time.
Lets see... well.. it took quite a while to read this relatively short book. mostly cause it really did not suck me in. it was rather dull to be honest. even the writing of all the action scenes was awkwardly paced. Actually the writing in general was bad. horrible grammar and very obscure word color. from the name of the author, i would guess he did not speak english natively. in that case, he probably should have had someone proof read and clarify his writing a bit. it short, very hard to follow.
the beginning half of the book it seems was a mix of just getting to know the major characters and to have the whole sequence of events get put into place, plus random text book material. yeah. the author was very proud of this scifi world he created that he came up with every excuse to put in raw data about his world down to the minute detail. and yes, it was sometimes an entire chapter of just scientific text book data with no story or dialog or clarification for those of us without jobs at nasa.
somewhere in the middle of the book, we actually get a plot moving along. Human navy forces (because the navy fleet travels through space) arrive on the planet to make it a base in a war that is going on between three factions and two species. something is randomly given through a text book chapter, but not really dwelled upon. at the same time, the local native peoples are getting restless cause the star system they are in is making the planet unbearably hot. this makes the grouping of natives in the southern half of the planet (the untouched barbarians) to try and force their way northward into the human shared civilized lands. I probably should explain that the native peoples are a well defined species in the book. they are six limbed felines with a strong symbiosis with plants. so they are described as cheeta taurs with green 'fur' and bushes for manes. one of their defining features is their mentality, so well level headed and free of mental illnesses and anger. course this book throws that to the wind like it does everything else by having the two factions go to war with each other for the right to not get baked by the approaching heatwave. at the first, the 'barbarian' leader takes over the most well defended 'city' on the planet and uses that as home base. for a great deal of the book, that's as far as things go. the rest of things revolves around relationships between the main human characters and their stupid inner monologues. basically 'i will die for you because you look pretty'. there is also some backstory into the two main ishtar (natives) characters. both the leaders of their factions. their names are impossible to remember. for the most part, they are very interesting and well developed characters.
anyway, eventually the main civilized characters go to make peace with the barbarians or something.. actually i think they were going to go and take the city back. all of this under the table if you will since the navy had demanded that all the colony's's resources be used to further their cause.
anyway, the barbarians happened to be sailing at the same time, and came across their ship, boarded them and took Jill as captive. basically she would be used as a bargaining chip for their cause. and everything that actually goes on shows the barbarians to be extremely civilized and with a justified cause. though strangely, the book contradicts itself by having their home base in the middle of a dying wilderness deep in a empty continent. anyway, she is given much freedom to do whatever she wants because they are nice. and oh, native plants and animals are not edible by humans.
eventually, one of her close friends makes a deal with the barbarian leader, effectively adding him as a prisoner as well. eventually this gets revealed that he snuck in radios in order to communicate with the home colony. for some reason it takes forever before a plan emerges on how to rescue them. in the mean time, that well fortified city gets put under siege by the barbarians because the author is so totally able to stay consistent. so, the two great istar leaders wage a war over this city and the barbarians slowly start winning. eventually the good guy leader falls rather bluntly due to an arrow (yes medieval weaponry). word eventually makes it over to the prisoners. though we only hear of it after the leader of the navy (who has the hots for jill) finds out through a recording held by the colony's mayor (his name is God, no joke) of a conversation he had. (the good istar leader raised jill, so her emotional response is warranted). he also accidentally told jill about her brother having died in that intergalactic war thats going on. remember that? well there was a single chapter early on that followed her brother into death. it wasnt much to it. apparently this news had no affect on her so it was all very pointless to have in the story.
basically this resulted in them somehow forcing the mayor over the radio to send them bombs. why was never explained and nothing further happened after the navy leader found out about them broken into bunker. instead the navy leader decides to single handedly fly into the barbarian home base to rescue the prisoners. somehow they have a plan that was never mentioned and they meet his far out in the wilderness.
instead of thankyous and such, the two prisoners hold him at knifepoint and force him to fly them to the battle scene still going on at that city. then for whatever reason lost on me, they force him to FIRE NUCLEAR MISSILES AT EVERYONE! yes, all those natives locked in combat dies. we even get the first hand perspective from the barbarian leader himself in all the gory detail. somehow this really doesn't affect the three humans who have all joined in on the same cause. they declare their cause to be good cause we want peace with the natives and to further the scientific study of the planet.
after this, the story returns to the present because all of this was apparently a retelling by the three to the head judiciary person for the human federation majigger. for a while thiere, i thought the book finally realized just how insane the main characters became. the judge rattled off in serious tones how many laws were broken how many immoral decisions they made and that they should get the heftiest sentence allowable. then suddenly pull a hollywood logic moment and go ' but after hearing it from you, i find it justified and fully pardon you of all punishment'. infact goes as far as to make them heros and the symbol for ending the large intergalactic war because for some reason, their actions are the one thing that will wake everyone up to how bad war is. and yes thats the end.
there are so many things wrong with this story it is ridiculous. it started a bit slow and technobabble for me. then just became to the point of OK, then took a dive into the deep end of the pool of stupid. i mean, the moral of the story is something along the line of 'war is bad. so lets kill everyone to further our study of local wildlife.' i dont know!
anyway, the book goes on my shit list.
Lets see... well.. it took quite a while to read this relatively short book. mostly cause it really did not suck me in. it was rather dull to be honest. even the writing of all the action scenes was awkwardly paced. Actually the writing in general was bad. horrible grammar and very obscure word color. from the name of the author, i would guess he did not speak english natively. in that case, he probably should have had someone proof read and clarify his writing a bit. it short, very hard to follow.
the beginning half of the book it seems was a mix of just getting to know the major characters and to have the whole sequence of events get put into place, plus random text book material. yeah. the author was very proud of this scifi world he created that he came up with every excuse to put in raw data about his world down to the minute detail. and yes, it was sometimes an entire chapter of just scientific text book data with no story or dialog or clarification for those of us without jobs at nasa.
somewhere in the middle of the book, we actually get a plot moving along. Human navy forces (because the navy fleet travels through space) arrive on the planet to make it a base in a war that is going on between three factions and two species. something is randomly given through a text book chapter, but not really dwelled upon. at the same time, the local native peoples are getting restless cause the star system they are in is making the planet unbearably hot. this makes the grouping of natives in the southern half of the planet (the untouched barbarians) to try and force their way northward into the human shared civilized lands. I probably should explain that the native peoples are a well defined species in the book. they are six limbed felines with a strong symbiosis with plants. so they are described as cheeta taurs with green 'fur' and bushes for manes. one of their defining features is their mentality, so well level headed and free of mental illnesses and anger. course this book throws that to the wind like it does everything else by having the two factions go to war with each other for the right to not get baked by the approaching heatwave. at the first, the 'barbarian' leader takes over the most well defended 'city' on the planet and uses that as home base. for a great deal of the book, that's as far as things go. the rest of things revolves around relationships between the main human characters and their stupid inner monologues. basically 'i will die for you because you look pretty'. there is also some backstory into the two main ishtar (natives) characters. both the leaders of their factions. their names are impossible to remember. for the most part, they are very interesting and well developed characters.
anyway, eventually the main civilized characters go to make peace with the barbarians or something.. actually i think they were going to go and take the city back. all of this under the table if you will since the navy had demanded that all the colony's's resources be used to further their cause.
anyway, the barbarians happened to be sailing at the same time, and came across their ship, boarded them and took Jill as captive. basically she would be used as a bargaining chip for their cause. and everything that actually goes on shows the barbarians to be extremely civilized and with a justified cause. though strangely, the book contradicts itself by having their home base in the middle of a dying wilderness deep in a empty continent. anyway, she is given much freedom to do whatever she wants because they are nice. and oh, native plants and animals are not edible by humans.
eventually, one of her close friends makes a deal with the barbarian leader, effectively adding him as a prisoner as well. eventually this gets revealed that he snuck in radios in order to communicate with the home colony. for some reason it takes forever before a plan emerges on how to rescue them. in the mean time, that well fortified city gets put under siege by the barbarians because the author is so totally able to stay consistent. so, the two great istar leaders wage a war over this city and the barbarians slowly start winning. eventually the good guy leader falls rather bluntly due to an arrow (yes medieval weaponry). word eventually makes it over to the prisoners. though we only hear of it after the leader of the navy (who has the hots for jill) finds out through a recording held by the colony's mayor (his name is God, no joke) of a conversation he had. (the good istar leader raised jill, so her emotional response is warranted). he also accidentally told jill about her brother having died in that intergalactic war thats going on. remember that? well there was a single chapter early on that followed her brother into death. it wasnt much to it. apparently this news had no affect on her so it was all very pointless to have in the story.
basically this resulted in them somehow forcing the mayor over the radio to send them bombs. why was never explained and nothing further happened after the navy leader found out about them broken into bunker. instead the navy leader decides to single handedly fly into the barbarian home base to rescue the prisoners. somehow they have a plan that was never mentioned and they meet his far out in the wilderness.
instead of thankyous and such, the two prisoners hold him at knifepoint and force him to fly them to the battle scene still going on at that city. then for whatever reason lost on me, they force him to FIRE NUCLEAR MISSILES AT EVERYONE! yes, all those natives locked in combat dies. we even get the first hand perspective from the barbarian leader himself in all the gory detail. somehow this really doesn't affect the three humans who have all joined in on the same cause. they declare their cause to be good cause we want peace with the natives and to further the scientific study of the planet.
after this, the story returns to the present because all of this was apparently a retelling by the three to the head judiciary person for the human federation majigger. for a while thiere, i thought the book finally realized just how insane the main characters became. the judge rattled off in serious tones how many laws were broken how many immoral decisions they made and that they should get the heftiest sentence allowable. then suddenly pull a hollywood logic moment and go ' but after hearing it from you, i find it justified and fully pardon you of all punishment'. infact goes as far as to make them heros and the symbol for ending the large intergalactic war because for some reason, their actions are the one thing that will wake everyone up to how bad war is. and yes thats the end.
there are so many things wrong with this story it is ridiculous. it started a bit slow and technobabble for me. then just became to the point of OK, then took a dive into the deep end of the pool of stupid. i mean, the moral of the story is something along the line of 'war is bad. so lets kill everyone to further our study of local wildlife.' i dont know!
anyway, the book goes on my shit list.