04-20-2007, 10:15 AM
The first book, "Hell's Gate" took forever but it's Weber so I assumed that eventually it would be worth the effort of skimming through the battle descriptions and getting to the personal stories, interactions that make it interesting space opera.
Not so much.
Lots of detail about the world and learning names of characters and histories of races, culturesl and religions and why things are the way they are, but very little actual story, just snippets of promises of story yet to come.
The second book, "Hell Hath No Fury" is exactly the same - more snippets. There are SO many characters to keep track of and so little happens to each one and they are all so far apart and unable to communicate events to each other fast enough that it pretty much makes it impossible for any of the major characters to interact.
After two books, the snippets have added up to the beginning of an actual story and after two books, I'm starting to get a glipmse of where they're going with this. But if it continues in the current style and pace, it'll be at least three more books before anything I've started to care about actually happens.
And of course, the second book ends on a cliffhanger. "Eureka! I've figured out a solution to this terrible problem. It's...." and they end the effing book.
So when they come out with the third one, I'll give it a few chapters. If they don't invent an instant communication method or narrow down the storytelling voices to fewer locations and characters, I'm giving up.
Sigh.
Not so much.
Lots of detail about the world and learning names of characters and histories of races, culturesl and religions and why things are the way they are, but very little actual story, just snippets of promises of story yet to come.
The second book, "Hell Hath No Fury" is exactly the same - more snippets. There are SO many characters to keep track of and so little happens to each one and they are all so far apart and unable to communicate events to each other fast enough that it pretty much makes it impossible for any of the major characters to interact.
After two books, the snippets have added up to the beginning of an actual story and after two books, I'm starting to get a glipmse of where they're going with this. But if it continues in the current style and pace, it'll be at least three more books before anything I've started to care about actually happens.
And of course, the second book ends on a cliffhanger. "Eureka! I've figured out a solution to this terrible problem. It's...." and they end the effing book.
So when they come out with the third one, I'll give it a few chapters. If they don't invent an instant communication method or narrow down the storytelling voices to fewer locations and characters, I'm giving up.
Sigh.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.