Kevin Anderson Books

I agree with another reviewer that when I got into this book, I could easily see Bruce Willis taking another stab at the "Die Hard" formula in this one--but getting it right again (after that third movie flopped). One man against an army of terrorists who hold several hostages, including the man's love interest...sound familiar? Well, it works anyway. This is a fast-paced book that never really slows down once it gets started. Its breathless pace will keep your interest until the end. No, there aren't many surprises here, but the fact that the hero has a broken foot is an interesting twist.

There are a few "Oh, come on" moments in here where the hero ignores the obvious solution to a problem and goes for the grand-stand play, but if you can overlook those, you get a great story. Despite its weak points, this is an interesting story and worth the time to read it. Recommended.

Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason struck gold when the wrote the action-packed book, Ignition. Terrorists take control of the space shuttle, Atlantis, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Join Col. Adam "Iceberg" Friese, Nicole "Panther" Hunter, and other fun characters in their quest to save the shuttle and it's crew from being blown up by the terrorists. This task would be a lot easier for "Iceberg" if he wasn't alone and didn't have a broken foot.

The plot- well, you have your usual bunch of bad terrorists, two from France, an Australian, plus other red shirt wearers who get killed in no time at all, led by a slimey leader. You have the good guys, led by "Iceburg", his nerdy brother, and his ex girl friend. Iceburg has a broken foot. The leader of the hostages is pain, and argues with Iceburg. Iceburg has to rescue his girlfriend. He does that by stealing a chopper. Its cliche city in other words. You name the stereo type, plot device seen in any number of action movies and books and it is here.

Having said all that, you will probably enjoy the read. Its face paced, frantic, and has even a few one liners that will make you laugh out loud. The characters have no depth at all, but who cares, this is an action thriller, not war and peace. And if you do want fast paced, exciting action, this is a great book for it.

You will probably enjoy this one, gentle reader, but take it for what it is- a few hours of light entertainment ( i read it in three days, and that was for a few hours a day), that will be put on your shelf and probably not touched again.

Grade: C

This is a book with action on every page. I couldn't put it down and was forced to stay up late to finish it. The only weakness is that the lead character's broken foot would not permit him to do the things he does. But that aside, the story is exciting, the reading is easy, and this is definitely a book to read and enjoy.

This book was extremely badly written. The characters all have a big ego and the worst dialogue. The plot seems interesting at first but becomes an even-worse-than-B-movie plot. I hoped it would be good because I'm a huge K.J. Anderson fan but this was horrible (right next to Ai! Pedrito!). Hopefully both of these terrible novels were because Anderson wasn't working alone.

Instead I highly recommend Hopscotch and Captain Nemo, both by Anderson.

Like all star wars "tales of the jedi"-comix, this one is a fabulous one, beautiful pictures, nice and interesting story line.
Top and entertaining.

Welcome to what is at this writing still the earliest chapter in the history of the Star Wars universe, a tale set 5000 years before the adventures of the film series.

CAVEAT ONE
Before you consider buying this, be aware that this volume is but one half of the story and that the conclusion is available in The Fall of the Sith Empire. This review covers both volumes.

CAVEAT TWO
If you're a pathological Star Wars collector, you'll buy this book regardless of its contents. If you're a Star Wars fan who wants to catch up on your history, save your money and read a summary of the events at Wookieepedia. If you're a discerning comics fan, then you must have found your way here by mistake. If so, don't stop. Keep moving. Everyone else, step right this way.

Despite a title that suggests something we never see, namely the glory days of the Sith Empire, author Kevin J Anderson came up with a promising premise. At opposite ends of the universe, the Sith Empire and the fledgling Republic seek to chart new futures, the Republic to end years of civil war and forge a new era of political and economic stability and growth, the Sith to revitalize their moribund Empire by throwing off their isolation and launching a new era of growth through conquest. In between are the innocents through which we view these events, a scholarly Jedi called to arms and a pair of young space navigators, brother and sister who through their explorations inadvertently open the hyperspace route across which the Sith reach to shake the foundations of the newly emergent Republic.

With a setting so far back in the past, Anderson has a wonderful opportunity to develop a good part of the Star Wars backstory. We find, for example, that the Sith were a separate species living on their own world in a relatively undeveloped culture that was then hijacked by a group of exiled Jedi who enslaved the Sith and built a new culture based on veneration of the Dark Force. Over the years these Jedi interbred with the Sith and a number of them left to conquer nearby worlds and create a system-wide Empire ruled by an all-powerful Dark Lord. The Jedi themselves are scholar-warriors closely aligned with political forces preserving civilization, pretty much the same as we have always known them, with one discernable difference - they don't carry lightsabers. And neither do the Sith.

They carry swords instead; swords made of steel. They also wear sandals, toga-like garments, and capes. They fly in spaceships that have sails, and the slavers have spaceships with oars. The Sith world of Korriban looks like it was cribbed from photos of Abu Simbel, with towering Pharaonic deities ensconced on thrones overlooking wide valleys and surrounded by sphinx-like guardians. In fact much of the costume and character design, from the scarab-like symbol of the Sith ruler to the elongated chins and goatees of the Sith, evokes Egypt in very obvious ways.

The artwork, provided across both volumes by Filipino Dario Carrasco, Jr., is not terribly remarkable. It's at best serviceable, in a style reminiscent of John Buscema, one of the iron men of the comic book industry who must have drawn tens of thousands of pages for Marvel for three decades beginning in the 60's. Carrasco, Jr.'s work benefits from a change in inkers and colorist in The Fall of the Sith Empire, where the lines become a little cleaner and the colors a bit more vibrant, but still it's not work that will ever be remembered or about which anyone has ever written more than a few sentences.

The same pedestrian touch is obvious in the writing. Kevin J Anderson wrote a few Star Wars novels in the 1990's and several of those books can regularly be found in "Worst SW Novels" lists. In this particular series Anderson has no protagonist, so he needs to develop his supporting players in order to give us more than just plot. Instead we get characters that are little more than props and literary devices. The Jedi scholar is the narrative frame, the brother-sister navigators the point-of-view characters and the vector of conflict, the Republic Queen and the Sith Lord wrestling opponents wearing good-guy / bad-guy personas. No one has any particular motivation except to get us to the next scene. There's nothing suspenseful or funny or touching or wondrous; it's storytelling about as developed and predictable as painting by numbers.

And with so many other comic books out there to read, you can surely find something more engaging, more worth you time and your money than this underdeveloped Star Wars adventure.

Happy hunting.

This interesting book is the fourth book in the Knights of the Old Republic series. The series is a collection of graphic novels that takes the reader to the Old Republic, thousands of years before the events of The Phantom Menace.

This book takes a step back, another thousand years before the time of Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma. When Gav and Jori Daragon's parents are killed in a war, they are now free to roam the galaxy and discover interstellar routes. However, when they blunder onto the hidden empire of the Sith, they unleash a set of circumstances that will lead to either the return of the Sith empire, or its destruction.

My twelve-year-old son is a big Star Wars fan, and he picked up this series so that he could keep on learning about the Star Wars universe. Overall, we found this to be a pretty darn good book. I thought that the illustration work was very good, dark and yet realistic, and found the story to be gripping. We both enjoyed the action and the many different creatures and races that are the hallmark of Star Wars.

Yep, we both enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it to you. We highly recommend the entire Tales of the Jedi series!

I actually checked this out from my local library, so I can't ask for my money back.

Maybe I can sue the publisher for the time I wasted reading this.


...

After reading most of the reviews here I was rather skeptical about purchasing this series. I was fortunate enough to find the comic books and have not read the TPB version of this series. This comic pleasantly surprised me. I've read some really awful stuff by Dark Horse "Infinity's End" for example, but this is not like that in any way. In the context of the grand Star Wars universe this fits in very nicely and addresses many things not mentioned anywhere else such as: who were the Sith, pre-lightsaber era, discovery of hyperspace routes and a bit more. The Jedi are portrayed much as they were in The Phantom Menace as ambassadors and peacemakers not as "wimpy whiners" as was mentioned in another review. The artwork is easy to quibble about and the starships look like something an Ewok would have designed, but it was nice to see Korriban, and get the back-story on Naga Sadow, and to see a developing Coruscant. All in all a very good read worthy of purchase.

Sometimes I suspect that reviewers simply say they like it because that's their habit. This is one of the worst things I have ever seen out of either Anderson or Beason, to the point where I literally wonder if it was to fulfill a contractual obligation. Beason's scientific background simply cannot sustain a plot with all the cardboard depth of a 1968 student rally. If you live in Marin or Boston, you'll probably love it. Those with any actual real-life experience with the sorts of people depicted, however, will more likely shudder than admire how the book develops.

But the problem is that a novel isn't simply a neat idea. Ideas are cheap. Worse than a plot so full of logic holes you could put a semi through it are the ridiculous stereotypes that stand in place of actual human characters in the book: they are simply demigods, avatars for attitudes, and the progression of the plot makes the problem worse, rather than better.

It's not *total* garbage. There are moments. But coming from authors of their caliber, the work is deeply disappointing.

This was a fabulous concept for a book--a kind of Andromeda Strain, only the bugs didn't just decide to turn benign and fly off into space, but ate all the oil, natural gas and plastic on the planet. But the authors have no imagination at all. Their descriptions of how quiet and peaceful it is after the disaster in various places around the Bay Area evince the worldview of an unimaginative, media-fed fourteen-year-old boy. The main characters' obsessions with rail guns, small satellites and puny electrical generation schemes simply run past ludicrous to depressing. What about the ten million starving people?

The fact that this book and ones like it can be written and published and read as entertainment provides a disturbing index of our society's level of conscience and awareness of the reality of human-human and human-environmental interdependence.

I started "Ill Wind" with high hopes for a well-written, engaging apocalypse novel, but alas, I was disappointed. The first hundred or so pages went rather slow and I had a problem trying to stay interested in the book. After the release of the microbe things went a little faster, and by the middle of the book things were moving at a good clip. The characters were cardboard cut-outs (except for a few exceptions) and for the most part the situations weren't very interesting, but it wasn't that bad. In all truth the book wasn't bad; it wasn't overly dull or cliched or anyhting. My biggest issue witht the book was that the general and President that served as the main antagonists in the story were treated as if they overeacting to the situation when in fact their reactions were reasonable given the situation. Besides the general's threat to destroy the satelites (which I found farfetched at best; these were very expensive pieces of equipment, and I doubt that he would destroy U.S. government property given his stance on protecting law and order) and the President's threat to nuke major American cities (which I found to be an all but ludicrous plot point; nobody in their right mind would do that, and the President seem that crazy) if they didn't stop seceding from the U.S., most of the measures taken made sense. This, paired with other flaws that I named, seriously damaged the book's quality.

I bought this book thinking that it had a wonderful twist on apocalyptic science fiction, is a favorite sub-genre of mine. It starts out promising and then about a quarter of the way through becomes a woefully boring waste. The characters are one dimensional and one could care less about any of them. Compare this to someone like Jack McDevitt. In his novels one feels like one really KNOWS Chase or Hutch or for that matter any of the characters he builds. The characters in this book are downright cliches. I have to say that I had to fight my way through to finish it and wound up giving it away to a friend of mine who teaches Environmental Science. Thumbs down big time.

I don't read a lot of fiction, but this title caught my eye because of the current situation with oil.

The premise of the story is great - what would the world be like without oil, or even petroleum-based plastics and related products. As others mentioned, the story starts out strong but loses focus through the middle, with a decent ending. I agree except for the part about the descent ending - it was very anticlimactic in my opinion. That, and the "science" aspect was barely enough to qualify this as a science fiction novel. It seemed more like the standard fare disaster movie material.

The characters, several of whom started out interesting, were too numerous to be fully developed. Some were downright unbelievable. Specifically, I don't know that there are too many hot Japanese American female scientists who really reminisce about baby-boomer rock and roll the way Iris does. I think this character was created out of the personal fantasies of one of the authors, both of whom seem insufferably linked to bad music from the seventies, as evidenced by the completely irrelevant and pointless chapter or two dedicated to some kind of post-apocalyptic Woodstock festival. Yawn.

It is a story based on a great premise, and for that reason alone it might interest people not otherwise inclined to read science fiction.

For those that do not know the works of Kevin Anderson, he is a literary leech. He attaches himself to every major franchise (X-files, Dune, Star Wars) and ruins their legacy with his bad writing and poor plots. This series was the most pathetic star wars storylines that shows his complete misunderstanding of the Star Wars Universe. As mentioned by another review, I feel sorry for the other competent authors that now must take this into consideration into the Star Wars timeline. Ultimately, this series does not have the feel of Star Wars and is just another lame SciFi trilogy with the SW name attached.

Avoid this and all other Anderson works.

Step 1: Ignore the previous review about how bad Keven J Anderson is.

Step 2: Read the book for yourself!

Keven J Anderson is definately one of the top star wars novelists in the market. From the creativity of "Tales of the Jedi" comic series (a definate must read) to Darksaber, This man has the star wars universe down.

Evil, nasty, but stupid and inept bad guys get their hands on a superweapon that can destroy the universe, but the good guys rally around their innate goodness and sheer ginchiness and manage to defeat the bad guys and everyone lives happily ever after.

If that's what you want, go for it. If you want complex and competent villains, heroes that actually do more than hold hands and focus on how good they are, and characters of all stripes that are intelligent, try Timothy Zahn or some other notables.

And be very, very grateful Anderson hasn't tried his hand at Star Trek. We barely survived having Diane Carey as an editorial favorite.

Kevin J. Anderson is terrible. Not just terrible, uncommonly terrible, unfathomably terrible... NUCLEAR terrible. No doubt you have noticed that many reviews of Mr. Anderson's "work" are decidedly positive. Ignore these misguided souls. It is people like these who allowed TV's Urkel to become a cultural icon. They deserve your pity, not your trust.

What makes Kevin J. Anderson so remarkably bad is not his clunky dialogue, which stumbles along like a '58 Edsel with three tires. It is not his mishandling of the Star Wars characters, his flawed plot lines or his complete and total misunderstanding of the principles of "The Force," the foundation on which the entire Star Wars universe is based. What Kevin J. Anderson does that truly marks his place as the worst author ever to pen a Star Wars novel is that his miserable choices, made relatively early in the post-Return of the Jedi timeline, negatively impact all the novels that follow. Every flimsy character he writes, every contrived storyline he creates, every stock character he unceremoniously kills off becomes a part of Star Wars history that must be dealt with by other authors. The many mistakes of Kevin J. Anderson transcend his own novels to detract from future works. No author is perfect, but Anderson creations like Kyp Duron, Darksaber and The Sun Crusher will forever diminish the Star Wars universe, not to mention stealing a few prescious hours from the lives of his readers.

So, don't get roped in by the good reviews. Don't let the fact that Kevin J. Anderson's name appears under a lot of Star Wars titles (most of which are editing projects or comics) convince you that he is a talented, or even passable novelist. And above all, don't buy his books. Don't even read them. Just pretend they don't exist... just like Jar Jar Binks. You will be a happier and healthier Star Wars fan.

This trilogy is a good installment of Star Wars lore. I thought Exar Kun made an excellent villian without the need to use a superweapon or try to resurrect the empire(which seems to be the normal fare for most SW novels). Han and Chewie's adventures on Kessel were quite interesting, as were the moments in the Maw Installation. The interaction between the Jedi trainees was also fun to read. Anderson did well not to make them all too similar or worshipful of Luke. The subplots were good too. Especially the relationship between Furgan and Mon Mothma, and what schemes he hatches. I enjoyed the Ackbar plot as well, as he suffers through self imposed exile. The part involving Anakin, Winter, and their sanctuary on Anoth is also enjoyable.

The only problem I had with the books, was that the actual academy didn't seem to get too much attention. I really wanted to find out about Jedi history and the way they train to use the Force. I wanted to like, or hate, Admiral Daala, but I just could not get interested in her.

I recommend getting this collection so that you are able to keep going through the story without interruption, but the second an third novels spend some time (sometimes way too much time) summarizing the previous one. It is, however, a minor irritation and should not infringe too much on your enjoyment of the writings of one of the ebtter Star Wars novelists, Kevin J. Anderson

I am willing to believe impossible things before breakfast, but not really stupid things.

All of the physical science premises of the book are ridiculous. Many of the other premises are silly: The Russians are going to fly an alien space capsule from Southern Russia to California, but only let the US have it for one day? Give me a break.

I didn't get past about 50 pages before I threw it away.

In 1966, Isaac Asimov penned Fantastic Voyage, a novelization of the screenplay of the same name, in which a crew of scientists were shrunk to microscopic size and sent into the bloodstream of a defecting physicist in order to destroy a blood clot. Time was of the essence, both for medical reasons and because of the limitations of the miniaturization technology. In 1987, Asimov wrote Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain. Not a sequel, but rather a reworking of the themes in the original, this story saw a miniaturized crew attempting to extract actual thoughts from the brain of a comatose scientist; time was also a factor here, as the crew needed to accomplish their task while the patient still lived. And here is Kevin J. Anderson's take on the topic, Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm, yet another non-sequel, in which a miniaturized crew explores the unknown physiology of an extraterrestrial. Time is an important element of this story as well, because of...diplomatic difficulties arising from the US's unlawful possession of the alien. Such an arbitrary means of creating an artificial sense of drama is one symptom of the major difficulty in Anderson's novel: its thesis is essentially that transferring the Fantastic Voyage template to alien anatomy is a pretty neat idea, and Anderson seems content with having gotten it down on paper and shows little interest exploring it very deeply.

Beyond the artificial sense of urgency is the concept itself, or Anderson's treatment thereof. The actual physiology of the alien is given only cursory treatment, and an imaginative writer willing to focus on biology would have a field day with the novel's premise. Anderson gives us a few examples of organs and structures, as well as some superficial speculations by the characters regarding their functions, and leaves it at that; a rather glaring case of neglect, considering that it's ostensibly the whole basis of the novel. In fairness, the reader eventually learns that biological exploration is not, in fact, the central plot (and more I will not say, so as not to spoil anything), but it still remains the central mission of the crew, at least at the outset, and so more than lip service ought to be paid to it.

Perhaps aware that his initial treatment of the exploration is rather thin, Anderson fills in the gaps with detailed background information on the major characters, virtually none of which turns out to have any significance. Stories like this one simply aren't character-driven, as a rule, and so as a result, the crew members seem to have traits and idiosyncrasies simply draped over them with no effects or consequences within the narrative. In fact, the single instance in which a character's background trait might have had an effect on the mission (a "revelation" involving the team's hastily-recruited civilian alien expert, which the experienced reader will have already been expecting for several chapters) is forgotten after only the briefest of treatments.

In general, Anderson is hampered by his need to obscure the true narrative until the appropriate time; this is a story not of exploration but of conflict (which is not a problem in itself; in fact, the introduction of some new element is necessary, lest this become a rehash of the previous novels). The problem is that neither the reader nor the characters are supposed to realize this at first, but Anderson doesn't seem interested in taking steps to disguise the story as a detailed travelogue of their journey. The reader is forced by Anderson's cursory treatment of the alien's physiology (and the crew's speculations about its nature) to assume that the purpose of their exploration is just to pass the time until something bad inevitably happens.

I cannot recommend that you go out of your way to find this; you'd be better off with either of the two Asimov novels, and even the derivative film Innerspace has instances in which it's genuinely funny (as opposed to Anderson's crew, who spend half the book cracking weak jokes to pass the time while they wait for the plot to twist). The eventual revelation regarding the alien and his motivations for having approached Earth is a nifty little thrill ride (though a little derivative of an existing SF franchise; I won't say which) and Anderson might have tightened up the story a little by starting from that assumption rather than making us wait until it's revealed. Still, despite the flaws in its execution, I have to agree with Anderson that, in theory at least, it's a pretty neat idea.

I still remember watching the original 'Fantastic Voyage' on TV many, many years ago and found myself totally immersed in the adventure. I was thrilled to see the novel written by Isaac Asimov, although he based it upon the screenplay, which is something Isaac is definitely NOT known for doing. He then went on to write his own version: 'Fantastic Voyage: Destination Brain' which again was fun, but I found it to be not quite up to the usual Asimov level of entertainment and intellectual stimulation. Now comes Kevin J. Anderson and a version which takes us inside the body of a real alien. Could there be a better premise for a novel about miniaturization?

I am happy to say that Anderson does a Fantastic job of taking an idea originated by someone else, and taking it to a higher level of science AND entertainment. Now, it has been mentioned before that this book isn't going to make anyone smarter by reading it, but, it certainly WILL give you an entertaining thrill while you do.

I read some reviewers now and again who base a books readability upon an almost impossible set of statistics that virtually NO book will ever live up to...are the locations of each novel 100% accurate? Is the science verifiable and factual? I personally base MY enjoyment upon whether or not I actually ENJOY the story, NOT the messy details...not that they aren't important or appreciated when an author goes out of their way to do the research, but I personally don't believe miniaturization is possible--at least not yet anyway--and therefore NO amount of scientific explanation, no matter HOW plausible and sophisticated it sounds will suddenly sway my opinion on whether or not a novel is actually worth reading. However, Anderson has written the technical details in such a way that whether or not miniaturization IS possible, it sure SOUNDS possible.

Oh yeah, one more thing: This story MOVES. Yes, it DOES take a chapter or two before the plot really unfolds, but trust me, when it finally takes flight, make sure your seatbelt is fastened and your tray is in the full and upright position 'cuz you suddenly go super-sonic super fast. The imagination alone it took to craft this story is worth the price of the novel...but the fact that Anderson has given us a great story as well certainly underscores his raw talent at storytelling. Buy this book and set aside an afternoon of virtual adventure in Innerspace...you won't be disappointed.

Immediately after reading the blurb on the back, I realized that the idea has some inherent limitation, and it would take a lot of doing to pull it off. I decided to go ahead and read the book, and see if Kevin J Anderson's reputation as a good writer would hold up. The book does have it share of action and highlights that makes it worth the time spent reading it, but I'm not sure if it was worth the money.

As far as science-fiction goes, most of the science that Anderson uses to explain the technology in the book is solid, but somewhat shallow. There is a lack of depth in the biological description of the alien body: the details Anderson uses consists primarily of very elementary biological terms. Furthermore, this book lacks a strong underlying meaning or message that can be found in great sci-fi. In this respect, it comes off as little more than a sci-fi thriller filled with some fancy terms. I am not even sure if the science (especially the physics aspect) or the logic for that matter is very sound.

In my opinion, the characters are paper-thin and rely on mostly character sterotypes to carry them through. I could not relate to the characters and did not feel emotionally attached to them when something happened to them. Anderson choose to place his character description in the weirdest place, often inserting them in the middle of an action scene. His characterization also lack subtlety; he tells the reader what the characters are like rather than revealing them within the plot or dialougle.

Speaking of dialouge, the lines exchanged between character are often corny and used at utterly inappropriate times. Failed attempts at humor punctuating scenes seem out of place and make the characters (especially the Mote's crew) seem like they aren't facing grave danger.

Summing it up, the novel does what it sets out to do (excite the reader with lots of action) relatively well without doing much more. For me, much of the plot was predictable so the book didn't intrigue me as much as it could have, but I did enjoy the end. The nanotechnology twist breathe additonal life into the novel, but it was excessive towards the end (how smart can those nanocritters be with microscopic brains?). I think this book would be a lot better as a movie especially with special effects. The abundance of action, plot, characters, and lack of deeper meaning makes it like the movie, Armaggadeon.

You will probably enjoy this this book if you liked Armaggadeon, but I am somewhat of a sci-fi purist which explains the negative tone of my review. It's a also good book if you're bored or need something to fill time on a long trip (like me).

This story spends about a hundred pages developing diverse intersting characters and then BANG sends them on a fantastic voyage. While I did not find the actual voyage into the alien that exciting, it was definitely suspenseful. What was more interesting to me was the story that was happening outside the alien among the politicians, diplomats, and the poor doctors. This was page-turning stuff! I think that the problem with the voyage inside the body was that it plays better on the big screen where one can visualize the suspense among the myriad of special effects. The narrative does just not do it justice. Great characters, a mysterious alien, and a good tale make this a four star book.

Author Kevin J. Anderson has a long-standing interest in issues of identity and body-image -- witness his "Resurrection Inc." from several years ago. In this book he postulates a "what if" involving the ability to move personalities from body to body. In a more thoughtful treatment this could have been a philosophical exploration of packaging vs. contents, of what makes us who we are (nature vs. nurture), or even an exploration of the differences between the sexes, or between the generations, or between races.

Instead what we get is a longwinded detective novel with "hopscotching" as a mere backdrop. There are a lot of major plot holes and untidy ends (such as any explanation of hopscotching itself) and when the author writes himself into a pickle he's not above creating new characters, new powers or new conditions to pull himself out. The story is not only sloppily-plotted, the writing is wooden, with stilted dialog and unconvincing characters. As other reviewers have noted, the passage of time is jerky and off-putting, and the book's 1950s morality is loudly anachronistic.

I hate to say it, but Anderson's involvement writing series novels for Star Wars, X-Files and Dune does not seem to have instilled good discipline.

I greatly enjoyed the complexity of "What if we could swap bodies" in the book. However, parts of it were disjointed and lacked flow. Specifically, many of the smaller sub plots did not with the main story.

The timeline could have been developed better. All of the sudden the story would be a month (or year) ahead without describing what had transpired.

The people in the book often swap bodies. Sometimes it takes place as no big deal with no concern from anyone. Other times, it's an issue of not having legal contracts, etc. and the author doesn't clarify why it is sometimes so serious and of grave concern and other times it is no big deal - something you meet at the bar to accomplish.

I give the author's writing a 3 but the story a 5. Overall, a 4.

At some point in the future humans learn how to swap bodies with one another, and very few people lack this ability. Sometimes, however, someone will swap with someone else who decides that they don't want to swap back. Against this backdrop, we find five friends who were raised together at an orphanage by monks, and we see how far they are willing to go for one another, blah, blah, blah, blah. The main core of three include an artist, a guy who swaps his body for money with people having surgery or other unpleasant ordeals, and a girl on a major quest to "find herself." The decription of the plot beyond that on the book jacket is inaccurate, by the way.
I enjoyed the book well enough, but I approached it specifically as a Kevin Anderson book: not particularly deep but engaging enough. He didn't explain the mechanics of swapping, and I can get over that, but there are so many other things he could have done with the whole concept of swapping bodies, both logistically and ethically. The characters were endearing enough, though they were essentially walking, talking sterotypes (broad strokes, broad strokes). But I was entertained, and for that I give it 3 stars.

In the not-too-distant future, humans have developed the ability to switch bodies with one another. Since the opportunities for crime are immense where a criminal can simply use another's body, law enforcement has taken on a powerful role and the BTL is a much feared organization. In an orphanage run by monks, three of four friends learn to experience body shifting. One, however, is incapable of shifting bodies but has the unique ability to see the true identity of a person no matter what body she may be wearing. One of the friends, Eduard, takes on jobs switching bodies for money. When one body switch goes horribly wrong, the four friends become caught in a battle between friendship and the law.

Author Kevin J. Anderson's concepts of human ability to shift bodies (hopscotch), as well as that of the semi-sentient computer/human web that monitors all activities, are both interesting and well presented. Anderson's talented writing keeps the reader involved in the story and willing to suspend disbelief. The characters' lack of real motivation, however, undermines the story. Eduard recognizes the futility of proving his innocence and doesn't even try to do so. Garth achieves success as an artist and doesn't know what to do next (although Anderson's descriptions of Garth's frustration with his success and his need to achieve more ring true). Daragon serves to hunt down Eduard, yet doesn't seem especially motivated beyond this. Even Teresa, separated from her body by a brutal cult leader, meanders through much of this novel.

Anderson's writing, and his development of the idea of body-shifting are both capable enough to make HOPSCOTCH enjoyable reading. I found myself wishing that he had done more with his talent and with the basic premise.

Science Fiction in the 50's and 60s - like most other fiction in the US - was discrete about sex, to say the least. Thomas Bowdler would have found little to expurgate. And that's exactly what struck me the most about Hopscotch. Not its characters or plot (more about that later), but that it is so eminently a 1960s novel. Hopscotch could have extended and completed the work Heinlein tried to do (and failed to do, I think) with "I will fear no evil." But it didn't.

Sex is important. It divides the human race in two, and each half is somewhat alien to the other. Anderson left a dark veil obscuring this difference. There are a few obligatory sex scenes, but nothing that really delves into the difference between man and woman during them. Perhaps that was Anderson's intent, but it leaves a book that will provoke far less honest discussion than it otherwise would have.

It could be that in a world where you can swap your body with another, everyone is so used to it that they slip on others' bodies like clothes from a closet. I have a feeling it wouldn't be quite that simple. Every closet has clothes that don't fit anymore, and every body has reflexes that your mind accepts naturally. When danger is coming, do you jump left or right? Everyone has a primary preference, and these are often reenforced at an early age. What if your body jumps left when your mind subconsciouly expects a jump to the right? And how do you adjust to different weight distributions between the sexes? Sadly, most of the body adaptation area is missing from the book.

Probably the best parts of the book are Anderson's descriptions of Garth's art, and the reaction of those who see it. I couldn't picture the exhibits or pictures in my mind, but I could picture the reaction of those coming out of the exhibits. That's a perfectly valid tool in a novel.

Less perfect are the characters. They just don't jell. They do things, you say "uh-huh," and go on reading. Characters in most novels much face difficulties and react to them. If the characters are fully drawn, the reader will understand - or at least accept - these changes. Changes in Hopscotch do occur, but I never felt comfortable that they were not doing so via the hidden hand of an author trying to keep a story moving along.

Hopscotch is OK, but it never truely condenses into the fine granularity that makes a novel memorable. It's not a bad book for the beach or some other idle time, but it's not worth buying until the paperback comes out. You will like the story better if you approach it with lowered expectations. You will like it least if your expectations are higher.

I started reading Kevin J Anderson's Saga of the seven suns series when i was waiting for some of the newer Dune books by Kevin J and Brian Herbert to be released. I LOVE this series. As usual, war and conflict have tied various worlds together in conflict. And there's that touch of love story that adds a special touch to sci-fi novels. You can see style similarities between this and the Machine Crusades books earlier in the Newer Dune series. The characters are always well written, and the story line engaging. Always entertaining, it's hard to put these books down.

Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns is a rich and sprawling science fiction epic. This gorgeously rendered graphic novel provides background information for the series - a prequel. Most of the story conatined here can be gleaned from the first two novels of the series. However, this is an alternative format, with beautiful and well drawn art work, that is a nice companion to the series. The plot is limited but clearly revealed and leads directly into the series. Full color throughout, glossy pages. A worthwhile addition to the "Saga," especially for fans of graphic novels.

This is a comic book. Unfortunately I did not discover this until after I had placed my order, for this product but thought "Hey it's still SoSS of it's bound to be good right?"
Wrong. Or rather, it was OK but nothing more than that. The drawings are good, but the story is nowhere to be found. If this work is designed to draw readers into the series, I fear it has failed. Not only does it offer HUGE spoilers but it fails to bring out the most basic intrigues and plots that make the series great. Words cannot express my extreme dissapointment when I read a $12.00 comic book that offered me nothing that I hadn't alreadr read in the novels.

If you like pretty pictures this product is for you.
To the rest of the SoSS fans, skip it. And to you who haven't read SoSS, go pick up a copy of Hidden Empire today!

The artwork was exceptional, but the story line didn't have the same detail that Anderson provides in his novels.

While I thought this should have shown more Ildiran kiths (I was really interested in the Singers), this is an interesting prequel, that gives alot of very interesting information. I hope KJA does more.

Having read Beason and Anderson's other books with the same characters, I found "Lethal Exposure" a bit of a dissapointment. While the characters were fairly well developed, and the idea had merit, the actual execution left something to be desired.

For instance I did not believe for one minute that Baretti could be that clueless as to the Indian's true motives. I had it figured out as soon as they sat down to talk the first time.

As another example, Kriedent should have been able to discern the cause of the explosion a lot sooner than he did. He had all the clues and specialized knowledge in front of him. Why it took me 3/4s of the book to figure out is beyond me. Again This was so obvious that it was practially shoved in the reader's face and I was able to determine the cause when they first met Dumenco and learned what he was working on.

All in all I'd give this book a read, if you are on a plane and there is nothing else to read. Otherwise skip it.

I have always thought the X-files was a good idea taken to far. This FBI thriller has a reality based X-Files approach, but the quality of a Tom Clancy Novel. Don't judge this book by it's cheesy cover.

FBI Special Agent Craig Kreident (the hero of VIRTUAL DESTRUCTION and FALLOUT) returns in this most excellent tale of near-future terror, cutting edge technology and international intrigue. The characters are well developed, the plot is filled with intrigue and the action is fast paced. A perfect summer read to keep your little grey cells hopping. Highly Recommended.

Anderson and Beason try unsuccessfully to combine the particle physics subject matter of hard sci-fi author Gregory Benford with the "I'm just a good-old FBI agent" narrative approach of Tom Clancy.

While the story successfully presents a mystery involving high-energy particle physicists, there is very little technical content to go along with it. Besides having predictable 1-dimensional characters (just like Clancy) the book has its share of other aggravations. For starters, it contains a critical overuse of the unheard of term, "towelhead", describing East Indians that wear turbans. And let's not forget the "sepia-eyed" nurse whose too often quoted expression is that she "never felt this helpless since Chernobyl" and did we mention that she was "sepia-eyed"? Oh yes and just in case you didn't get it before, her eyes are the color of, what's that, oh yes "sepia". ARRGGG!! And what in the world is so special about a checkered tablecloth turned 90 degrees?

Terribly unsatisfying read.

Kevin Anderson's debut novel "Resurrection InC" has some very good passages, and the action(once it starts) moves fast. Danlo, a newly formed "Servent" that is a corpse that is animated by a microprocessor, becomes "self-aware", and tries to figure out if he remembers his life before his death. Parts of the novel "pay homage" to "1984", with a doomed heroine named Julia that awakens a cog in a monsterous machine to the evil he is doing. Villain is of course, power-hungry, condescending and slightly insane, using a form of "Satanism" as a joke to fool the masses. Nice use of San Francisco here, and good reference to R.U.R and Kapek.

I read this book a couple of years ago, and it still bothers me. As I was reading it I had trouble sleeping. After I finished it I couldn't read anything else for a couple weeks.

This was a profoundly disturbing book. I gave it three stars because of its powerful effect -- not because I enjoyed it. In truth, it was absolutely horrifying.

The premise is that in the near future mankind has figured out how to re-animate the dead, making them just smart enough to provide slave labor but not activating the higher mental functions that would allow them to become autonomous. The world's economy has been profoundly changed (toward personal gain for a very few, and economic ruin for everybody else) by this source of unlimited free manpower.

The story centers around one person whose memory does not get completely wiped, and begins to remember bits and pieces of his former life. Oooh, it creeps me out just typing this!!!

Oh sure, it could never happen and there are plot holes you could drive a hearse through, but it still kept me awake staring at the ceiling for a week. This story out-Kings Stephen King.

Resurrection Inc. is a disturbingly different kind of novel than most are used to. This could have been a painfully bad read, if the idea for the story had been put into the hands of a less qualified author. Kevin Anderson has done a suprisingly good job of taking a very "out there" premise and crafting it into a compelling novel that is hard to put down once it's started. There's a few problems with the story that occur here and there, but they are offset to the point that one could almost ignore them completely by the dead-on stinging social commentary and overal excellent story crafting present.

The story behind the novel is that sometime in the future the medical process for reanimating an otherwise inanimate corpse has been discovered and put to a very profitable use. Why pay a worker every two weeks for the rest of his natural life - complete with benefits and medical insurance, when for the price of just one normal worker's yearly salary you could have a unquestioning servant to do any simple or physical work, no matter how distatestful or strenous, and never pay another penny. While this sounds great to all the employers out there, this of course causes a huge problem for all the blue collar workers who have no higher education or technical skills to set them apart from the undead servants.

With this backstory it would appear that the author is trying to create a dystopia, and while there are elements here that could create dystopia (such as all the out of work, lower caste individuals playing the part of the "proles" from the novel 1984, or the futuristic technology gone horribly wrong ala Brave New World), it never fully manifests, which unfortunately lessens the impact of the book slightly.

There are three main organizations who hold power in the universe of this novel - the first is the actual company called "Resurrection Inc." which creates the servants, the second is the "Enforcers" who are privately owned military/police who have destroyed the need for government run police. The final orginazation is the prominent religion of the time frame - Neo Satanism. Were not talking real modern day LaVeyan style satanism either, but the "ye olde" satanism where a literal devil figure is worshipped. At first glance, this seems completely out of place in a novel about the medical advances of the future, but as the novel progresses it becomes easy to understand why this element is in the book. Anderson is contrasting mankinds technological advances with their personal and intellectual advances. While the ability to create unlimited slave labor via the dead, and a vastly complicated network of computers and every day appliances have been strung together succesfully, man still remains the gullible and superstitious sheep they have been since the dark ages. As the reader will discover part-way through the book, this religion was created specifically for the purpose of separating the sheep from those who can think for themselves, and several real world examples are made (painfully so to the members of the religions mentioned). For example, when two of the people responsible for the advent of Neo Satanism are discussing how to go about creating the religion, one of them mentions how they should fake some physical evidence to back up the outrageous claims of the religion, the other person replies caustically, "Proof? We can just say the angel Moroni popped down and did away with all the evidence, it's been done before." in a reference to the very same thing occuring in the Mormon religious doctrine.

The actual main story, that of the hero of the novel, an undead servant named Danal, is an interesting read on it's own, regardless of all the social issues surrounding the story. It seems Danal, despite all odds, can somehow remember things of when he was alive - which of course raises all kinds of fun questions about life after death, the morality of slavery, the "cosmic consciousness", and all that other stuff that man will be bickering about until the end of time. *Partial spoiler ahead here* The main thing about the story that bothered me was it's ending - it was happy. Everything worked out for the heroes and all the "bad guys" got what they deserved. This completely destroys the point that the author was trying to make. The unhappy endings worked in "1984" and "Brave New World" because it showcased the themes of the novel. The happy ending in this novel cheapens the impact, as it seems to concede some ground, as though the author is saying, "Yeah, I've got this amazingly great point to make, but I'd better cave in and give the very kind of people I'm writing about a happy ending so they don't actually think about anything and start asking any questions".

Looking past the few problems the novel has, "Resurrection Inc." is an excellent read, and highly recommened, just be prepared to take some abuse if you are one of the sheep the author is writing about.

I bought this mostly because I read a lot of ST books but never a comic book, so I was curious. The character and ship drawings are fine, with the worst being Data. The action is fast paced, but underdeveloped, but it's a comic book, so it's OK. The writing is very bad. Also, the writer didn't have a good grasp of the characters. Their actions/reactions seem out of place compared with other Trek literature or TNG.

Thsi book is basically to fill in the holes in the whole Gorn mythos. The huge reptiles that never quite played well enough on TV to be spotlighted before. Its a reasonably good story but nto anything to write home about.

Having been a fan of Kevin Anderson's `Star Wars' comics and novels, I picked up `The Gorn Crisis' HC to see if he could work the same magic with the second incarnation of that other sci-fi/space opera legend that starts with `Star'. With a little help from co-author Rebecca Moesta , AKA Mrs. Anderson, he did a fairly good job, even though the finished product fell somewhat below my expectations. Don't get me wrong, I found it to be a pretty good yarn, but it wasn't quite as epic in scope as I'd hoped it would be.

The story is basically an explanation of why the Enterprise didn't seem to see any frontline action or even get much of a mention during the Dominion war that was showcased in the last two seasons of `Deep Space Nine'. Aside from the real-life problem of Paramount not wanting to face the impossibility of having the NextGen principals occasionally guest-star on DS9 during the Dominion War story arc and keep the show within budget, that is. Her mission is to look for allies to recruit in the fight against the Dominion, the Gorn being one of the top prospects. I'll go no further with the details of the story... you'll have to check it out on your own. But I will tell you that, aside from the Gorn, it features Klingons (none of whom are Worf), a few pitched ship-to-ship and hand-to-hand battles, a beheading or two, and a couple dismemberings here and there to keep it interesting. You know, the good stuff.

Artist Igor Kordey's painted renderings of the ships are dead-on, and his efforts to get the likenesses of our Starfleet stalwarts were fairly on the mark. Especially Picard, who looks even more like a man of authority and leadership than he usually does in the NextGen series and films. Data and LaForge, however, look a bit more chubby-cheeked than usual. And I've got to give Mr. Kordey's vivid imagination high marks for depicting Riker all buffed and muscular. You'll see this blatantly flattering embellishment when our beloved- and shirtless- first officer is bat'leth training with a Klingon ship captain.

Kordey's designs and redesigns of the Gorn makes up the appendix of this adventure. He shows how he made significant changes to the Gorns so they'd look more reptilian and realistic. Of course, when the only resource you have to go on is the original series episode `Arena', featuring a seven-foot tall guy in a somewhat cheesy Godzilla-like getup, making them look more realistic in painted form should be a snap. But not only did Kordey tweak the look of the Gorn themselves, he also helped design (with Paramount's final approval of course) their architecture, governing body, cultural symbols, and a bit of their written language, all seen in his illustrations of the Gorn homeworld. These elements are explained in the appendix as well.

As I've stated earlier, even though I found this enjoyable to read, it's not quite the epic I was hoping it would be, and I don't think I would've paid what I did for it were I given a chance to take a sneak-peak at it before purchase. So if you plan on snagging a copy of this NextGen adventure, I recommend waiting until it comes out in the more affordable trade paperback format.

`Late