Linda Evans (2)Rezensionen

Ugh. The story seemed interesting, and I tried to get at least halfway through, but the stupid girl acts /way/ too childish. When you expect some progress in the storyline, all you get is her annoying attitude. I’m glad I don’t have a physical copy because I’m totally anti-book burning but this one is really asking for it.

The Sharonians and the Arcanians have fought their first engagements and the honours lie with Sharonia at the start of this book. Back in their home universe the story of the slaughtered survey crew has enraged public opinion, especially the supposed death of Shaylar, the first woman to serve in a survey crew. This anger also propelled Sharonia to form its first unified world government based on the ancient Ternathian empire that was still the world's largest and most powerful empire. Out in the boondocks, the two parties are talking but the Sharonians realise that the Arcanians were not taking them very seriously but they don't realise the full scale of Arcanian duplicity, nor the full force of the Arcanian forces, especially the dragons, for Sharonia has no experience of airborne transport until death comes down from the skies. We follow the successful push forward of the Arcanian forces and the heroic defence of Fort Selsby by Sharonian forces, and the cost to Sharonia as it's Crown Prince is a victim of that attack. Due to the illness of Weber's writing partner, much of this book seems biased towards the Sharonian side with much of the non-fighting side of Arcanian life taken up by the journey of Shaylar and Jathmar into captivity many worlds to the Arcanian rear.½

The first book in the Multiverse series doesn't spend much time in setting the scene as we are dropped straight into the middle of the action as a Sharonian exploration team member makes an unfortunate first contact with a member of an Arcanian expedition. With both parties dead, working out who's fault it was would be impossible and neither side expected to meet another civilisation in the first place so both sides were afraid of what the other would do. It's not quite a 'cast of thousands' novel, but the book (and series) swaps points of view between those at the sharp end of the action, to those in political control (particularly on the Sharonian side), though this isn't as jarring here.

Although the two authors have their distinctive voices, they mesh quite well in this book though I suspect David rather preferred the Sharonian side to the Arcanians - both sides have different levels of technology and mental skills - the Sharonians have Talents that resemble 'traditional' psionic skills, and a level of technology around the late Victorian era, whilst the Arcanians employ magic and have developed creature out of legends such as dragons and unicorns, and a level of technology about the late medieval period and the inability of either side to come to terms with their opponents' skills is one of the drivers of the conflict that drives the series

A great read, but alas, she hasn't had the time/energy/inclination to write the sequel.½

A well told tale about a vintage Bolo that faces a serious moral dilemma when it is charged to support a vicious and tyrannical regime. Lots of mayhem and heroic action before the evil ones are defeated. Great cover on the book.

Needs editing. No flow - I was always having to go 'huh?' and re-read to figure out. Kinda like Pratchett in that way - elliptical, ironic, sly, digressive, and sometimes outright ungrammatical which adds further to the confusion... I guess I'll stick to more straightforward story-telling.

Unbelievably stupid and not remotely believable. Sometime in the future, time travel is possible, both “uptime” and downtime.” To do this, time scouts are needed to scout unknown areas and guides are needed to show tourists scouted areas such as historical Rome, Victorian England, shogun Japan, etc. The most famous time scout of all time is the stupidly named Kit Carson, who is retired.

One day, some total massive hottie, the like of whom has never been seen in the universe shows up on the space station in a massive rush looking for Kit. She is secretly 16, but “looks 18,” so it’s okay that every male who sees her, regardless of age or marital status stares and drools. All men think with their penises in this book. Even Kit, who’s old, when he sees her, is struck dumb with amazement. Then she announces she’s his granddaughter and wants him to train her to be a time scout! No more incestuous thoughts, I guess. Still, everyone else wants to pork her.

Kit tries to talk her out of it and enlists the aid of every time scout around and the top weapons specialists and researchers around. She thinks it sounds romantic and knows nothing about it. Well – get this – first of all, you have to be a scholar. You pretty much have to have a PhD. Many have PhDs in History or Anthropology or other Humanities discipline. Margo, the girl, doesn’t study. Hates school. Then, since you’re visiting who knows how many foreign countries, you have to be fluent in many, many languages. Kit is fluent in 20. Margo barely knows one. Then, you pretty much have to be a special forces veteran. A PhD. Yep. You have to know how to fight anyone anywhere and how to beat the hell out of anyone and kill them if need be. You also need to know your weapons. You need to know how to use, fire, and clean hundreds of guns. Margo has never picked one up. You need to know blades. Margo has never picked one up. You need to know at least three to five martial arts, black belt level, probably more. Margo took a few classes of one in high school. And one of the time scouts who’s helping to train her who seems to be about 40 develops some type of romantic relationship with her even though they have absolutely nothing in common and even though it’s statutory rape. Apparently, the author, Robert Asprin (Linda Evans is a collaborator, but I’m not convinced she did that much, because I have some respect for her), really wants to fuck a 16-year-old girl. Really badly.

And yet, I’m willing to bet, Margo triumphs over all and becomes a successful time scout, the first female one, no less, and everyone is happy. I say I’m willing to bet because I didn’t finish this joke of a disaster. It’s too stupid to waste my time on. There are too many other good books to read. This was honestly one of the dumber books I’ve picked up in a long time and rest assured I will never read another book by this author, who must be a total dumb ass. One star. Definitely not recommended.

Second in the Multiverse series created by David Weber and Linda Evans, Hell Hath No Fury is quite excellent. If one can stomach quite a bit of violence. For violent it is. Two separate worlds in two separate universes, each exploring new alternate universes through portals they’ve discovered, encounter each other in the first book. And Arcana, the magical, militaristic culture run entirely by spells attacks a civilian survey crew from Sharona, which is a technology-based world, of a WW I era of technology, including rifles, revolvers, artillery, etc. Both sides suffer casualties, but while Arcana takes two prisoners, both of whom are presumed dead by Sharona, and one of them is the most popular woman in their universe, Sharona exacts their revenge on Arcana. So Arcana sends out some “diplomats,” asking to negotiate, not shoot. Things seem odd, but the Sharonans decide to negotiate in good faith, as they don’t want an interstellar war. Meanwhile, the devious Arcanans are moving up thousands of troops and dozens of battle and transport dragons to attack the Sharonans and invade their portals and take as many as possible into Sharonan territory. In doing so, they’ve lied to their troops, telling them their most popular citizen was killed by Sharanon troops when in fact it was an Arcanan who killed him. And they know that. They’re itching to start an interstellar war, but they have no orders to do so. One rogue mid-level officer has ordered this and now tens of thousands of lives are at stake.

Meanwhile, we meet Crown Prince Janaki, heir to the Sharonan throne, detailed to take some prisoners home and accompany Voice Darcel Kinlafia, the man who “saw” the original slaughter and alerted all of Sharona to what had happened. Janaki is a good man and talks Kinlafia into going ahead of him to run for Parliament, where he might be able to do some good. He, like his whole royal family, has Glimpses and knows his destiny lies in dying in defense of a major portal fort several universes away. His father, Zindel, and his sister, Andrin, not yet 18, both have strong Glimpses and are deeply worried. A Conclave is called and a world government is called for to unify the world’s countries and their armies into one, all presumably to be led by Zindel. Unfortunately, one Chava Busar, Emperor of Uromathia, is holding everything up, refusing to give his approval to this arrangement unless Zindel’s son marries one of his daughters, thus putting his grandchild on the empire’s throne at some point in the future. Many people are ticked, but Zindel agrees and the time is set for putting this all together.

So, the time has come for the Arcanans to attack. And they do, with 14,000 men against 800 Sharonans. And they lose a battle dragon or two, which shocks them, even though they annihilate all Sharonans. There are three types of battle dragons. One breathes fire, one throws lightning bolts, the third breathes poison gas, killing the most people. They are their secret weapon, since the uncivilized, barbaric Sharonans don’t have and have never seen magic.

And they attack a fort. And decimate it. And take prisoners. And torture and slaughter the prisoners. And this becomes a pattern. When Weber, for this is undoubtedly his work, writes bad guys, they are REALLY bad! The Arcanans are evil bastards. They kill all the Voices, since the have learned about the Sharonan VoiceNet and how they use it, and they destroy fort after fort, taking prisoners and torturing and slaughtering them as they go. It seems the only honorable Arcanans are the long distant Jasak Olderhan and Gadrial Kelbryan.

Finally, they reach the big fort, the major fort where Janaki is. Through his Glimpses, he has been able to warn the commander of the impending attack, how it will happen, where it will come from, how to defend, etc. And they’re ready. The battle scene is a typical David Weber battle scene: most excellent. And of course, Janaki dies. The serious problem with that is it leaves Andrin heir to the throne and now Busar is insisting she immediately marry one of his sons and he is gloating his way to the throne. However, as we will hopefully find out in the next book, Kinlafi will have something to say about that and will play a major role in the survival of Sharona. The book ends in a typical Weber cliffhanger stalemate and I’m damned eager to see some Sharonan revenge. The problem for many people is that this book was published in 2007 and there’s been no Book Three. People have been left hanging and they’re not happy about it. Apparently, Linda Evans became quite ill, so the series was discontinued. People ask why Weber didn’t just continue it himself, since it was so quite obviously HIS book. But he didn’t. The good news is, I just learned that Book Three is scheduled for publication in March 2016! With a different co-author. Don’t know what happened to Evans, but I’m damned glad Weber got together with someone to continue an excellent series. The first book was quite good, but this one was better. Lots of action, lots of intrigue. Definitely recommended.

Usually I connote Aspirin with very tongue in cheek material. His Myth and Phule series. Here, however, there is little tongue and cheek but a intrigue, adventure, and battle. A much different tale then we have seen before, but the premise begins a little off, and then later, it is hard to swallow as well, for we have time travel, but our main characters must do so into host bodies of the time and we meet a much different Lancelot and Morgan le Fey than we are used to in the tales of King Arthur.

Here, Asprin and Evans combine the tale, with historical supposition to weave their intrigue with actual historical events thrown in to give us some meaning, as well as events that are created to seem historical in this telling of later Briton, early Saxon England.

The sharing of hosts though seems very convenient when our true heroes of the tale enter and share the bodies of key people to the time and tale, while the villain enters a non-entity. The ending that tries to tie up some loose ends also leaves a little too pat to one interpretation of the legend trying to make it work becoming forced. But when we take things like that and put them aside and allow our hero to be part Lancelot and part himself, then we have a very fun yarn to take part of.½

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. Neither the cover nor the blurb I had read about the book seemed that appealing to me. However, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The story was set in recent times, I believe near the end of the 20th century, in our current world. In this book, Norse mythology was real and the main character had a bone to pick with the god Odin.

I actually didn’t know the first thing about Norse mythology. However, this wasn’t a hindrance to my ability to understand and enjoy the book. I did read it on my Kindle PaperWhite, so I periodically used it to get the Wikipedia entries for some of the gods mentioned in the book. I don’t think that information was necessary for understanding the book, but it did enhance my enjoyment.

The book was fast paced and fun. There was a lot of action, and the action was well-written. Sometimes when I read action sequences in a book, I find they can be confusing because the author doesn’t clearly express exactly what’s happening in a way that I can follow. On the other hand, sometimes action sequences can be described in such excruciating detail that the urgency is lost and I’m altogether bored by them. The author of this book struck a very nice middle ground between those extremes. I enjoyed the action sequences and had no problem visualizing them in my mind.

The entire book is written in the first person view from the perspective of the main character (Randy). The book starts off switching between two time periods: the present, and a time slightly in the past where we learn what led Randy to his present endeavor. At that point in the book, I found the story from the past to be the more engaging one. Eventually, maybe a fourth of the way through the book, the events in the past catch up to the present and the rest of the book is finished in the present. By that point, the present story started to get a lot more interesting.

Randy is mouthy and sarcastic, although you don’t fully see that until you’ve gotten a little ways into the book. His reactions and the things he said added some humor to the book which I enjoyed. But there were several things that strained the credibility of the story. When Randy was outmatched physically, apparently he could talk his way out of just about anything. Not only did his bravado sometimes seem over-the-top, but it seemed unrealistic to me how often the other characters were either won over by that bravado or “put in their place” by it. It also seemed like a great many times he managed to survive a hairy situation through the power of dumb luck. My final nitpick is related to the female characters. It seemed like every female goddess in the book admired Randy and/or wanted to seduce him. I’m not normally one to complain just because every female character in a book isn’t strong and independent, but the actions from all the female characters got a little silly and I found it particularly surprising from a female author. However, in retrospect, maybe the author just intended that to be Randy’s perceptions of the females’ actions, and the idea was that Randy thought the females were all trying to seduce him! He did seem to have a bit of an ego.

The ending was fleshed out and detailed, and it didn’t stop shortly after the climax like so many stories do. I felt satisfied by the way everything was wrapped up. However, a new dilemma to be solved was raised by the end of the book, implying that maybe the book was originally intended to have a sequel. However, the slightly open ending didn’t really bother me because everything I was invested in had been wrapped up. The ending left me with the sense that Randy’s adventures had only just begun without leaving me frustrated by a major cliff hanger.

Despite the things that made the story seem less believable, it was still a very fun story and I’m glad I decided to give it a try.

Love this series, the first two books are awesome in scope, ideas and execution, can't wait for next one, but I'm afraid the authors may have moved on, it's been so long since the last one

Oh drat. When I first read this book, I loved it. I gave it four stars for creativity, characters and plot. I liked the way the authors interwove the facts of the Jack the Ripper case with the events happening to the characters in the book. I loved the steampunk aspects of the entire series. I even understood why the authors found it necessary to invent a whole new character to pin the murders on.

What I do NOT understand is why the authors made a huge historical error (by neglecting one tiny piece of research) for no reason that advances anything in the book. One of the prostitutes who is soon to be murdered goes to Aleister Crowley for help when she feels endangered, and he has sex with her, but can't help her avoid her coming fate. There is nothing in the scene with them which advances the plot or the reader's understanding of any of the characters. It's as if Crowley is dragged into the novel just so the authors can mention his self-awarded reputation as "The Great Beast."

One big problem--Crowley was thirteen years old when the Ripper murders took place. He wasn't in London, wasn't even living on his own. One teensy little websearch by either Asprin or Evans would have turned up this little fact.

You blew it, guys.

Quite possibly the worst David Weber novel that I've read to date. Clocking in at 1236 pages, a good 900 of those would have been better used as compost than filling this book.

Pointless politics, petty rivalries, and meaningless repetition fill the majority of this novel.½

Hell’s Gate by David Weber and Linda EvansBook one of the Multiverse series is a most engrossing 1200 pages. Evan’s and Weber portray two unique civilizations on a road to conflict. Arcana bases their technology on magic. Sharona has psychic talents but bases their technology on science. The multi-universal aspect is that both civilizations have discovered portal to alternate earths that have no populations until they confront each other. David Weber and Linda Evans do a superb job in describing two dissimilar cultures and those cultures’ idiosyncrasies. As they alternate back and forth from culture to culture you find your sympathies vacillating as well. The beauty of their work is that you truly find things that are both laudable and stimulating for each culture. They are being drawn into conflict by serendipitous contacts and malicious behavior in spite of their root similarities. I can not wait to read the next volume, “Hell Hath No Fury”. I highly recommend it and all of David Weber’s Work.

I didn't like this book. Bolo books should be about combat and human interactions with AI machines, which this book starts nicely with. However, the book then diverts from that and spends hundreds of pages ranting about how bad socialism is. Sure, the baddies are nasty, but its not a very believable rendition of communist Russia. Worse, the story is told with a whiney teenager I found deeply annoying as a character (she's meant to be annoying, but I just didn't care about her). Finally, after about 400 pages of such drivel, we finally get around to having some more actual bolo story. The finish of the story is ok, I just wished it didn't take so long to get there. This is by far the weakest Bolo book I have read so far.

http://www.stillhq.com/book/Keith_Laumer/The_Road_to_Damascus.html

Hell’s Gate by David Weber and Linda Evans

Book one of the Multiverse series is a most engrossing 1200 pages. Evan’s and Weber portray two unique civilizations on a road to conflict. Arcana bases their technology on magic. Sharona has psychic talents but bases their technology on science. The multi-universal aspect is that both civilizations have discovered portal to alternate earths that have no populations until they confront each other.

David Weber and Linda Evans do a superb job in describing two dissimilar cultures and those cultures’ idiosyncrasies. As they alternate back and forth from culture to culture you find your sympathies vacillating as well. The beauty of their work is that you truly find things that are both laudable and stimulating for each culture. They are being drawn into conflict by serendipitous contacts and malicious behavior in spite of their root similarities. I can not wait to read the next volume, “Hell Hath No Fury”.

I highly recommend it and all of David Weber’s Work.

This one's a run-of-the-mill time agent story, in this case the agents are tour guides. In this tale, an experiment gone wrong has resulted in wormholes through time, linking past and present locations. Entrepreneurs have capitalized on the wormholes--called "gates" at their present day end--offering tours of the past to those wealthy enough to afford the trip. Of course, before there can be any thoughts of tourists or tours, someone has to check out these past eras, to set up places for the tourists to arrive, to arrange accommodations and generally discover an itinerary for their trip. That's the job of a time scout, to go into a new gate and get the lay of the land. It's a difficult and demanding profession. Not one that promises a long and prosperous future. The smart (and lucky) ones retire early and opt for less dangerous professions. Such is the case of Kenneth Carson. As one of the most famous time scouts, he's now the owner of a small hotel in a time terminal. It's a quiet life, at least until a young woman shows up at his doorstep, asking that he train her to be a time scout. Carson's attempts to convince her otherwise before she runs off into the past and gets herself killed make up the tale. It's an entertaining read, good for killing an afternoon or two.
--J.½

Excellent characters, complex environment, slowly evolving plot. The magic military vs the evolving victorian age military. Great ending for transition to next book. Sorry to lose the prince but it creates a strong story line.½

In 10 words or less: A sentient tank and a former war hero face off.

In more than 10: Sonny is a Mark XX BOLO -- basically, a sentient tank, but in reality, a complicated thinking war machine sent to Kafari Khrustinova's planet to protect if from an alien menace, which he does, very effectively. Kafari is a college student whose actions during the invasion make her a international war hero.

What happens in the years following the invasion pits the two against one another, making Sonny question his programming, and Kafari fight for her values.

Ringo has written a gripping cautionary tale full of insurrection, political manipulation, governmental malfeasance, and of course, lots of involved technical detail.½

Quick amusing read. May be offensive to some. I took it in fun and enjoyed some of the imagery.

Time Scout pulls you in quickly and then drags you through a morass of tedium. Occasional bright spots appear, but this is largely just a tedious tale of a troubled teen who bullies the adults around her into letting her have her way. Oh, and she's also a hottie so we can throw in a quick love story with a much older man. This is not one of Asprin's best and I doubt we'll be seeing much more of Linda Evans (although I haven't checked so it's possible she's done some better work on her own).½

A book about misunderstandings, deceptions, and machinations. Not so much about fighting.

This does not have much of the action that I typically associate with David Weber. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely not what I was expecting based on other information I've seen about this book. From the looks of things, the next book in the series (Hell Hath No Fury) may be a bit more active, but this whole series may end up being more of a diplomatic/political conflict type of series with a few battles thrown in. Due to the nature of the world setting, this almost has to be a fairly slow paced story.

There is a lot of talk between characters, and a lot of character development, and a lot of world development through character dialogue. This made it more difficult for me to get into than is typical for me when reading some of his other books. And by the time is felt I was hooked and really getting into it, it ended, with nothing really resolved, although there was plenty of stuff built up for the next book.

Overall, I am kind of disappointed that this didn't live up to my expectations, but I like it well enough (or my curiosity has been piqued enough) that I will be reading the next book to see how/if things get resolved.½

While the prior book in this series (Hell's Gate) was kind of slow starting for me, this one wasn't. Of course, that may be due to the groundwork that Hell's Gate put down.

This book, as Hell's Gate before it, kind of ends at a cliffhanger. There is no feel of resolution to me. This is definitely seems to be starting out to be a series where the individual books do not stand very well on their own. I am looking forward to further books in this series, though, if only to satisfy my curiosity.½

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