Star Carrier: Pierwsze Uderzenie (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
Summary: Good old space opera military SF. Good plot, good universe, well written, thoroughly enjoyed this one. The only real problem is that their is a rather obvious and fatal flaw which must be overlooked for everything to hang together.Plotline: Good plot well thought out with action all the wayPremise: An interesting universe, well presented, not quite sure the author has really thought through some of the consequences of his physics...Writing: Good characterisations, simple writingEnding: Oh yes, climactic!Pace: Never a dull moment. Douglas is both a good writer and an uber-geek, but he could do with a better editor. I found this book hard to get through. Douglas spends a HUGE amount of time explaining how his fictional future's technology works. While this might be a plus for some geeks, it is not for me. I think it gets in the way of the story. But more annoyingly, it is highly repetitive. Not only does he explain how his starfighters are able to propel themselves through space, he does it at least ten times in the book. Repeatedly, my eyes glazed over and I started skipping paragraphs and skimming text because an action-packed battle scene has been diluted by technical specifications. It's like someone dumped the sentences from a great novel and a mechanic's technical manual into a bucket, mixed them altogether, and then reassembled them into one story. That being said, the story itself was quite compelling. Douglas' invention and portrayal of the alien was both unique and well thought out. Despite the alien entities and worlds being truly alien, Douglas made them fathomable. The social ramifications of his futuristic society were compelling. He had characters with real depth and personality. I plowed through because I really wanted to know the end result of the plot and the fate of the characters. For the excellent writing, great characters, and compelling plot, I would give it five stars. However, the repetitive and frequent technical explanations diluted the experience and took me out of the fascinating, flawed, and beautiful world Douglas built. For that, I dock two stars and will not likely be picking up another book by Douglas in the near future.
What do You think about Star Carrier: Pierwsze Uderzenie (2013)?
This one I left at chapter 5. It was just too technical for my taste. By chapter 3 they should've been making major headway. It feels like the book hasn't moved one bit. And Gray, being a military type, probably should stop whining about loneliness. If he signed up for it, he can deal with it. He can't be a loner and then miss people just cause he loses communication for a little bit, that's just lame and weak. If he was lost for a few days I'd understand, but his comm wasn't out THAT long. And if the AI is gonna be doing most of the work, why not increase your technology and just make the AI control the Starhawks? Forget the humans and possible casualties. Let the AIs break through the Tush defenses and then let the task force fleet enter and evacuate everyone and take over defense? Seriously. Not everything needs to be so detailed either. Pick the use the detailing for the ships and battle or the stars/planets, don't randomly shift between the two, because that just feels awkward. "Crazy combat! Oh wait, pretty planet description.....Krait thing fired! oooh pretty....." I don't like that one bit. Better luck next time. I won't be finishing this one up. I'll find a different Sci-Fi book.
—makeupgirrl
I've read a fair amount of Stark Trek, Ender and Lost Fleet books to understand Sci Fi writing needs to be a balance of action and story. This has way too much action and I'm not really sure what the plot is. The technology and war descriptions are great but I don't get enough back story on why this war is being fought, who the aliens are and why these Marines are trapped on the planet at the beginning of the book. I feel like the whole first half is like the "blowing up the Death Star scene" but I don't know what the Death Star is. Then half way through it you start to see some glimpse of character development but it's too late. I hope I'm wrong and it changes toward the 2nd half of the book but I'm putting it down for now for something more interesting.
—fantasyfen
Fun read. Good hard sci-fi capital ship combat.
—Nayraselena15
