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Metal Swarm by Kevin J Anderson
This is a book review. I'm posting it here and also cross-posting to my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marrax journal.
This is the sixth of seven books in Anderson's Saga Of Seven Suns. The Saga of the title refers to the chronicle of everything kept by the Ildirans, one of the alien races in the series.
As the sixth book starts, the war waged by Humans and Ildirans against the Hydrogues - ancient aliens that live in the cores of gas giant planets - has come to an end, culminating with a titanic battle above Earth.
There are still troubles though - Humanity is divided, with the majority of the Terran Hanseatic League, a trading coalition consisting of most of Earth's colonies, breaking away joining the Confederation set up by their fugitve King Peter. Peter was supposed to be nothing more than a puppet and mouthpiece for the real power in the League, Chairman Basil Wenceslas. After a series of attempts on his and his pregnant Queen's lives, attempts by Basil to replace him with a more suitable candidate, Peter flees to his wife's home planet of Theroc to set up the new government. Only too happy to join the new order are the Roamers, gypsy-like clans of humans organised along mainly family grounds. Supreme innovators, they make a living from places others wouldn't even dream of. Chief amongst their industries is sky-mining, refining hydrogen from gas giants into stardrive fuel.
Meanwhile, the Ildiran Empire is rebuilding itself from a civil war and the ravages it suffered during the Hydrogue war, when battles between the deep-core aliens and their ancient enemies, the star-dwelling Faeros, extinguished stars and left planets in flames.
That's not to mention the treacherous Klikiss Robots - monstrous, millenia-old machines built to be tortured by their creators, who ended up wiping out their former masters and hibernating. Reawoken, they sabotaged human military robot production with hidden programming, and are now hell-bent on wiping out all humans, everywhere. And probably the Ildirans as well. They'll have a bit of a problem, though, because far from being wiped out, the insectoid Klikiss themselves are back after ten thousand years, intent on building up their numbers and wiping each other out in their ritual breed, conquer, and dispersal cycle.
Oh and the Wentals and Verdani, the water and earth making up the remainder of the elemental quartet - the good guys, of sorts, with the Wentals still rebuilding their strength with the help of the Roamer clans, and the Verdani, tree-like entities mainly resident on Theroc who've granted human Green Priests the ability to communicate instantly across light-years through telepathy.
That about covers the colourful cast, to a degree. The story pushes on, with the rift between Earth and the breakaway Confederation growing as the Chairman's use of the military to crack down on rebel colonies increases. The Ildiran Empire is set alight - literally - with a deadly reignition of the civil war when its originator returns embodied as a Fearos. The Klikiss Robots and their creators clash, with human colonists caught in the middle. Love affairs blossom, babies are born, people die, planets burn, battles are won and lost.
The writing is split between two styles: stilted, awkward, euphemism-laden, descriptions of relationships and thoughts, and high-adrenaline battles and political backstabbing. The former grates badly, and clearly isn't what Anderson should be concentrating on. The latter works far better, and it's obvious why his Star Wars and other tie-in novels have been successful. With the tie-ins, he doesn't need to spend entire chapters putting together a character or a place: we already know them, and their motivations, or can at least have a good guess given how and where we meet them. He just has to write the battles and the politics and get on with telling the story. He's also guilty of some of the greatest sins possible in Sci-Fi writing (in particular the aliens-freely-breeding-with-humans one!) but I don't think he really cares on that count.
This is Boys' Own Sci-Fi, though: it's not meant to be taken too seriously. Take out the awkward bits, and Metal Swarm, just like the preceding five books, is immense fun, and by the time the inevitable cliffhanger ending rolls around, you find yourself wanting to know what happens next.
marrax journal.This is the sixth of seven books in Anderson's Saga Of Seven Suns. The Saga of the title refers to the chronicle of everything kept by the Ildirans, one of the alien races in the series.
As the sixth book starts, the war waged by Humans and Ildirans against the Hydrogues - ancient aliens that live in the cores of gas giant planets - has come to an end, culminating with a titanic battle above Earth.
There are still troubles though - Humanity is divided, with the majority of the Terran Hanseatic League, a trading coalition consisting of most of Earth's colonies, breaking away joining the Confederation set up by their fugitve King Peter. Peter was supposed to be nothing more than a puppet and mouthpiece for the real power in the League, Chairman Basil Wenceslas. After a series of attempts on his and his pregnant Queen's lives, attempts by Basil to replace him with a more suitable candidate, Peter flees to his wife's home planet of Theroc to set up the new government. Only too happy to join the new order are the Roamers, gypsy-like clans of humans organised along mainly family grounds. Supreme innovators, they make a living from places others wouldn't even dream of. Chief amongst their industries is sky-mining, refining hydrogen from gas giants into stardrive fuel.
Meanwhile, the Ildiran Empire is rebuilding itself from a civil war and the ravages it suffered during the Hydrogue war, when battles between the deep-core aliens and their ancient enemies, the star-dwelling Faeros, extinguished stars and left planets in flames.
That's not to mention the treacherous Klikiss Robots - monstrous, millenia-old machines built to be tortured by their creators, who ended up wiping out their former masters and hibernating. Reawoken, they sabotaged human military robot production with hidden programming, and are now hell-bent on wiping out all humans, everywhere. And probably the Ildirans as well. They'll have a bit of a problem, though, because far from being wiped out, the insectoid Klikiss themselves are back after ten thousand years, intent on building up their numbers and wiping each other out in their ritual breed, conquer, and dispersal cycle.
Oh and the Wentals and Verdani, the water and earth making up the remainder of the elemental quartet - the good guys, of sorts, with the Wentals still rebuilding their strength with the help of the Roamer clans, and the Verdani, tree-like entities mainly resident on Theroc who've granted human Green Priests the ability to communicate instantly across light-years through telepathy.
That about covers the colourful cast, to a degree. The story pushes on, with the rift between Earth and the breakaway Confederation growing as the Chairman's use of the military to crack down on rebel colonies increases. The Ildiran Empire is set alight - literally - with a deadly reignition of the civil war when its originator returns embodied as a Fearos. The Klikiss Robots and their creators clash, with human colonists caught in the middle. Love affairs blossom, babies are born, people die, planets burn, battles are won and lost.
The writing is split between two styles: stilted, awkward, euphemism-laden, descriptions of relationships and thoughts, and high-adrenaline battles and political backstabbing. The former grates badly, and clearly isn't what Anderson should be concentrating on. The latter works far better, and it's obvious why his Star Wars and other tie-in novels have been successful. With the tie-ins, he doesn't need to spend entire chapters putting together a character or a place: we already know them, and their motivations, or can at least have a good guess given how and where we meet them. He just has to write the battles and the politics and get on with telling the story. He's also guilty of some of the greatest sins possible in Sci-Fi writing (in particular the aliens-freely-breeding-with-humans one!) but I don't think he really cares on that count.
This is Boys' Own Sci-Fi, though: it's not meant to be taken too seriously. Take out the awkward bits, and Metal Swarm, just like the preceding five books, is immense fun, and by the time the inevitable cliffhanger ending rolls around, you find yourself wanting to know what happens next.