Metal Swarm (2007)

Orbit,fall07

spring08,sf

You might say this series has really grown on me, perhaps like a cheap beer after the 10th or 12th can. The unlikely coincidence of events are leading to more wars -- and it's hard to identify two factions that have not been at war sometime in the course of this series events. Despite its title, Metal Swarm wasn't about the rise of the evil robots -- in fact, they are rather on the decline. The Klickiss, a race of giant insects, has come back from presumed extinction to reclaim all of their former worlds. Worlds that several novels earlier were the targets of a new human colonization initiative. Ooops.

The Earth's Hansa's chairman is getting nuttier by the day, and is now pretty much an incarnate of Stalin. His minions are even becoming conflicted with the magnitude of the orders being issued -- and one actually has the wherewithal to do something about it. But if internal strife and giant bugs aren't enough of a threat, the Faeros, a race of fire elementals that live in suns, have gone on the offensive under the direction of a mad, outcast Ildiran usurper who had started a civil war a few books back. ( )

Only one more book to go.

Often during the reviews of this series I cite how timeline is a terrible distraction. The Pregnancy that has gone on forever is now finally over. How a second problem that the author thinks is a triumph is the short vignettes of everyone's story. That still plagues us.

How as a political treatise we have a meglomaniac ruling earth without a checks and balance system. Still the Chairman gets away with terrible horrors and no one stops him.

A new item has come to the surface and that is the absence of death. In a story with so many heroes, killing some of them would seem to be natural. Especially with so many chances that they should die. Some of the horrors that our heroes face are such that cheating death should not be an option. But here very few have died.

For a successful author who certainly has a great deal of royalties form his other successes, one should believe that Anderson had the time to devote to polishing the story. Sometimes it takes hours to get to a planet, and sometimes weeks. Sometimes days goes by in the threads of one hero and then another is picked up and it is a few moments since last we met.

This is a story that a map of the galaxy could not be given because the author creates devices he needs whenever he needs it. The same with the abilities of his alien adversaries. All that means to me the reader that logic is absent. Further causing the story to be ridiculous.

That it gains higher marks from me then before is that now as some of the storylines are finishing, I am happy for it, and have the tiniest bit of better perception. But I will be glad when it is all done. ( )

Not as good as the first 5 books. The stereotypical stupid-human political subplot ruins the stories of the truly awesome alien beings and cultures conceived and developed throughout the series. ( )