145
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #213,029 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★☆☆☆
Too smart for his own good yet.
This author, Cantrell, took a very interesting idea for a plot and extended it into a potentially captivating story line with neat tech, a good dilemma, and likable and interesting characters, but then was overcome by his experience in IT: too many words that are not "action" and do not directly sustain the pace of the story. For instance he spends 4+ pages describing a new computer interface (replaces the mouse, keyboard, etc.) that, while related to plot nuance, did not require a full historic review of more than 1/4th this text. Likewise several chapters on the history of Space Exploration and Colonization. Also he tends to describe "about what happened" instead of actually running the active scene so we can directly experience it. Whoever compared him to Asimov should go back and reread Asimov, he was all about actually "running the scene" so a reader could live it directly. While a fine communicator, Cantrell needs to learn forget most of the background filler and trust his skills to write each moment as it happens. The best author examples of this are Iain Banks and Larry Niven, both pull you excitingly through new tech and surroundings via the action as it unfolds. Cantrell needs better editors who push him to cut the chatter and deliver the electricity of the action.
