Amazon Customer Reviews
Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns - Book #1
Kevin J. Anderson
For 10 yr. olds it could be good writing, August 12, 2003
By Ronin "ronin32" (New Castle, DE USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns, Book 1 (Hardcover)
Maybe I'm a little too picky. I'm in my 30's and was looking for a good epic book, something like Wingrove, Niven, or Stephen Donaldson. Those are high standards, I admit. The more I read this book (I'm around page 350) the more fascinating it is to me how awful the writing is. At first I wanted to be polite and circumspect in my criticism, but now I'm sick of it.
The character development is so-so, the action is horrible! Major huge turning points are literally dealt with in about 10-12 sentences (or less) and bam!... onto the next scene. There is not one iota of wonder, grandeur, "space opera" or any of that. It could be an interesting universe, but the writing just kills it (as another reviewer said). The dialogue is something a high-schooler might write "I'm very eager to see your shipyard, ambassador!" or "Wow, this is the most amazing archaeological find ever!" are examples of the kind of things you'll find in here. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, b/c there are plenty of books accessible to young readers that are very well-written.
Good idea done very badly, September 28, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns, Book 1 (Hardcover)
In the opening of this book, we are treated to the concept of a Jovian planet with both a methane atmosphere and pockets of breathable oxygen. Not anywhere in the universe does this happen, sorry. Chemically impossible, Luke at Bespin not withstanding.
At another point we are told that light takes "decades" to cross the galaxy. Thousands of decades, I think.
SF requires "willing suspension of disbelief" and stuff like this, every dozen pages or so, will just slap anyone with any kind of education across the face a bit too often for that to succeed.
Now, maybe, if Mr. Anderson had the energy of a Doc Smith or the invention of a Larry Niven, or the sheer "sense of wonder" of Edgar Rice Burroughs, one wouldn't notice all the silliness as one raced through the story. But this book is neither fast-paced or inventive. So the errors are the most memorable part of the book.
A poor Star Wars wannabe with no characterization or particular literary skill. A good story setup, done very badly.
For younger readers wanting a good story, and not too critical of science or writing, try Galactic Patrol, Niven's "Known Space", or A Princess of Mars. There's a reason these are still in print many decades later. This one won't be.
Just terrible, November 19, 2003
By "jgrass39" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hidden Empire (The Saga of the Seven Suns, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
I just had the unpleasant experience of finishing this book last night. It is without a doubt one of the worse sci-fi books I have read in a long time (of course I've been reading a lot of Greg Egan, so that is a fairly high bar to go against). I've never read Anderson before, but you can see that writing all of the star wars books have really killed his creativity. The book is long for the sake of being long, he introduces far too many characters to make the book seem more epic, and he gives the characters over the top personalities to differentiate them. None of these ideas are new (a half dozen other sci-fi books talk about gas giant dwellers), and frankly the softness of the science is simply too much (inter-species breeding, come on!). Plus the revelations at the end of the book are obvious after about page 50.
Depressing, November 24, 2004
By Marlowe (Bayonne, NJ) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hidden Empire (The Saga of the Seven Suns, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
It's depressing that a writer with the obvious lack of talent of Kevin Anderson is obviously making a mint of money. It's also depressing that the hard science fiction scene is at such a low ebb that I, a sci-fi fan for more than 40 years, picked up this book to satisfy my habit although being well aware of the level of Mr. Anderson's talents from the abominable Dune sequels.
Despite some interesting plot concepts, this novel is truly awful. The numerous faults of this novel have been previously mentioned: dialogue that could be bettered by Doc Smith, characters that are (almost to a man, woman, or alien) denser than Forrest Gump, and chapters that cut faster than an MTV video. And while I have never required (and actually tend to dislike) the elaborate scientific explanations for future technology that often accompanied Golden Age sci-fi (when many authors were moonlighting scientists), the utter ridiculousness of an open decked ship in the atmosphere of a gas giant made my eyes goggle.
what a horrible writing style..., August 8, 2009
By
shapri@av.co.il (Tel-Aviv, Israel) - See all my reviews
I read a lot of trash books - specifically scifi and fantasy. nobody can accuse me of having good taste with these sorts of books. This book however, stands out. It was increasingly hard to concentrate on the story because thw writing style is that of a very bad computer game dialog or plot writer. It was almost physicallypainful to read. it is one of the only books i stopped reading in the middle in the past 20 years. it was that bad.
Short Story in Novel Form, October 24, 2008
By J. Martin -
Seriously over-written book. Should be overwritten. Entire worlds and characters are included that do little to nothing in moving the plot forward.
This is a story I wanted to like...Sad read.
Not for adults and/or fans of science., July 16, 2007
By Dr. Benway "The Doctor" (Florida)
This book should have a big Day-Glo "Fantasy - Young Adult" sticker on the cover and be shelved in the children's book section. Anderson has some great ideas, but executes them poorly with vapid prose, irritatingly stupid (as in clueless) characters and junk science. For example, it is generally accepted that one cannot raise pigeons on the open-air deck of a habitat orbiting a gas giant planet. It is also improbable that humans would use a fusion-drive mode of interstellar transport when they are able to generate wormholes with the ability to suck up a neutron star and deposit it anywhere they choose. Why not just vacuum up a Wal-Mart and some birds and stick 'em in orbit around some distant star's version of Jupiter? Also, humans would probably not need to rely on the quantum telepathy of alien trees to communicate instantaneously across the galaxy.
It is also unlikely that a fusion powered engine would have a turbocharger.
In each of the 115 chapters in this 441 page book (each 2 to 3 page chapter boldly labeled with the character it is about to chronicle, ostensibly to aid any reader with very poor short-term memory,) most of the nouns and verbs are modified with an adjective - 'deeply aware' 'beloved forest' 'beatific face' "soft mists, green gases, and swirling currents' 'indelible tatoos' 'carefully potted' etc. - leaving the impression that Anderson consulted his Creative Writing 101 textbook and a thesaurus several times per sentence. His character's experiences are similarly modified in a 1950's B-movie poster 'thrill of panic' style that quickly becomes tedious and tiring to read. The reason this book is getting one star instead of none is because it has an end, and upon further contemplation it should probably not be in the children's book section, where it might give some aspiring young writer the idea to pen something as equally irritating, although that would be quite a feat.
Did I mention the stardrives have turbochargers?