I think it's important that you come to the Hellhole trilogy with certain expectations. I'm not used to the style of writing Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert did on this trilogy, so I ended up feeling the first novel was kind of slow, with promise of a lot more to come in the sequels. And even though that is true for Hellhole: Awakening, I finally came to the understanding that this series is not an "action packed" story.The Hellhole trilogy, in my opinion, can be best described as a political science fiction series that doesn't really deal with action (gun fights, ship battles, etc, etc) the way a lot of other stories do, because those things aren't what this series is focusing on. The Hellhole trilogy focuses on politics of the conflict more than the conflict itself.If you don't like that style of novel, don't buy the book, you won't enjoy it. If you do however, than the Hellhole: Awakening is an excellent novel. I enjoyed it quite a bit and am now working on the third installment. All the five and four star reviews for this book sound like publisher's blurbs. I think the publisher or authors must be seeding the reviews.I read the first one because I liked the Dune books by these two, but I was very disappointed by Hellhole and Hellhole: Awakening. The characters are one dimensional, with cheesy dialogue and no real sense to their actions. The authors tell us what everyone is thinking (over and over and over again) so there are not many surprises in the book. All the characters seem really stupid at times, and their reactions to events are only to forward the plot, even at the expense of previous (meager) character development.I was also annoyed throughout the first half of the book by the constant repetition, driving home stuff that was in the first book, in case I hadn't read it. (Ishop's need to redeem his noble name, the Xayan's wish to have more slickwater converts, the Diadem is a ruthless old ruler, yeah, we get it). That kind of stuff is boring.The science doesn't really make much sense. I mean, the book states that you can 'detach' from a stringline anywhere along the line, as Walfor did coming into the Candela system when he found the doomsday asteroids, but the fleet destroys the endpoint terminus ring in a system in order to keep the rebels from entering that system. Wouldn't the rebels just hop off early to get in to that system? And ships on the stringline run off the end where the line was breeched by the rebels and get horribly lost in space, but they are able to send a probe out on the stringline which returns quickly and lets them know the line is broken? The stringline technology seems to work only as plot necessities dictate, with no consistency to speak of.And with space ships that have the power to evacuate near 300,000 people from a planet, they don't have the technology to divert two asteroids from a planetary impact with a weeks notice?That said, the storyline is kind of fun, and the ideas are ok, I guess, which is why I gave it two stars instead of just the one. I ended up just trying to skim quickly through the boring parts and not think too much about the plot holes. I'll probably pick up the third book from a bargain bin eventually to see how they wrap it up.
What do You think about Hellhole - The Awakening (2013)?
enjoyable and good second part setting it up nicely for the finale.
—BobPa
The universe development is interesting. Once again a quick read.
—mistycat
Real page turner. Looking forward to Book #3.
—Colzee15
