Singularity / Ian Douglas

Singularity

(Star Carrier #3)

by William H Keith aka Ian Douglas

military science fiction

copyright 2012

read in August 2019

rated 7/10: well worth reading

This is book three of... possibly... eight. Still, it can be read alone. Sure, there are dozens of characters that I don't know -- but they are well introduced. Often, over-introduced. There is a lot of repetition.

Character backgrounds are repeated. Science explanations are repeated. Descriptions of hardware -- vehicles, weapons, alien artifacts and so on -- are repeated. Not really boring just noticeably repetitive.

The plot moves forward slowly, clearly, inexorably. Brute force prevails, nothing subtle. Just thump the enemy -- and be thumped in turn -- till one side surrenders.

All that sounds rather... ordinary. So why do I rate this at seven? It's a six, read to pass the time -- with one bonus, the scope of the background history...

Right at the end we get a multi-billion history of the universe. I've had this before and it tends to be pointless, tedious, hard to accept. Douglas presents the backstory of his universe in a brief, believeable and relevant fashion. Relevant to this book, enormous in scope, brief and interesting.

For that history I add one rating point.

Even without that history, I will be happy to read other books in the series. In any order. An enjoyable enough way to pass some time.

This book provides a solid and satisfying conclusion, with a clear expectation of more to come, more problems to be solved by cunning strategies backed by brute force. This is clearly not the end of humanity's problems... because it's a huge universe, with a huge range of spacetime for problems to develop.

====    Dr Nick Lethbridge  /  Consulting Dexitroboper
             Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
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"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." … Blazing Swan Survival Guide

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dying for you to read my blog: notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au :-)
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