A Forest of Stars

Kevin J. Anderson set all his toy soldiers out in the first book, a tedious if necessary procedure. In this second volume, he gets to pick them up by the fistful and smash them against each other, which is much more fun. Besides the familiar cast from the first book, a couple of more alien players take the stage as well, promising some epic battles in the coming books. This one definitely kept me turning the pages.

The book is a bit less repetitive in its descriptions this time around, although you will still find yourself reading passages, especially exposition about character's motivations, that you already read earlier in the book, and in the book before that.

One complaint: The whole Klikiss robot conspiracy is painfully obvious: how show more can the humans not see this coming? And didn't Anderson do this already in the Dune prequels? show less

I started this with a degree of trepidation, almost out of a sense of duty, to continue my way through the series after not particularly enjoying book one. In fact I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it and found myself slightly disappointed that it ended when it did. This isn't soaring Sci-Fi of incredible insight, but is a perfectly good space-based tale with extra bits and pieces thrown in that make it an enjoyable read. I hoping now that book three is another step up, we might yet have a classic on our hands...

This series continues to amuse me by combining all the stereotypical and overused sci-fi story elements into one epic. We've got tragic love stories, an evil corporation, ancient evil robots who rebelled against their creators, grudges between ancient races of aliens, some very strange types of ancient aliens (including sentient and telepathic trees for some reason), huge space battles, and, of course, plenty of scrappy and resourceful humans. I love it like I love made for TV movies about space monsters/godzillas/fill in your favorite really bad and clichéd entity.

Much better than the first book, probably because far fewer principle character are killed off. Humanity is at war with a mysterious, powerful race and their full military capacity seems unable to phase them. These aliens, the Hydroges, live inside of gas giant planets, and a war was inadvertently triggered when, in the first book, an ancient technology was tested that turned such planets into small suns. The Hydroges were not amused as cities containing millions were annihilated. With the war going poorly, humanity considers using the ancient technology to blow up other known planets, but are concerned that doing so could trigger a campaign of extermination. Little do they know such a campaign is already under way.

There is still some show more very strange twists and turns. Humans are proving to be late arrivals in what was an ancient war. The World Trees, a sentient tree that can transmit thoughts across vast distances instantaneously with the help of "green priests" are an ancient enemy of these Hydroges, and the real reason humans are being targeted is because they are aligned with and sheltering these trees. Meanwhile, a fiery race dwelling in suns is also made an appearance, joining the war without even a how-do-you-do by an exploding diplomatic emissaries. Then one of the characters from the first book discovers some sentient water that condensed as he was scooping up free hydrogen in a nebula cloud.

In spite of the war, political machinations continue abound. The chairman of the Hanseatic League is dissatisfied by the lack of tractability in what was supposed to be his puppet king, Peter (replacement for Frederick, who was blown up by the aforementioned emissary. Political marriages are arranged which could create a string of alliances throughout all of the human groups, but war causalities are wreaking havoc even on the aristocrats. And then there are the robots. Evil, evil robots. show less

Things don't get much better in this 2nd book of the Saga. The mysterious hygrogues continue to attack the human and Ildiran civilizations, and the humans continue to remain blissfully ignorant about just about everything. Apparently in this future while they have some neat technogadgets like a FTL drive, they don't have any sort of improved sensor technology, robotics, weapons technology, or a whole lot of common sense.
There are some interesting ideas in these books, but they move too slow, the 'science' is far too uneven and inconsistent, and the reader has to ignore far too many things to make them really worth reading.

In my review of the first in this sequence I said that I might read the sequel in a library copy or buy it very cheap. I seem to have done both: I bought this one cheap, and I was more than halfway through before I realized that I had actually read it before. Like the first volume: plot not bad, some of the scenery great, some nice pieces of imagination; but clunky characterization, repetitious explanation, too much development that occurs in narration rather than action or dialogue, and no intention or motive is ever left ambiguous.

And what is this obsession with dynastic arranged marriage? And why do the ordinary people not realize that the King of the Hansa is a ceremonial figurehead? It's hardly a new idea: the British have been show more developing it for a couple of hundred years already.

MB 19-xi-2012 show less

Book two of the Saga of the Seven Suns worked well to continue the story of the numerous characters featured in book 1. Speaking on that point, there are almost too many POV characters to keep track of and really care for. Any lesser author than Kevin J. Anderson and it would have failed miserably.
What I did like about this book was that it went further in depth of the ancient war that is being renewed. He brings about all of the four races, though some are still very shrouded in mystery. I would like more information released about the Klikiss, though too.
Another problem with the numerous POV characters, is the fact that there is so much repetition. I counted at least 12 at one point, though some die off, some are not featured as show more often, and then of course some are very important. Since it moves between them so often, it can be six or more chapters down before coming back to the same character. Then Anderson has to repeat (loosely for the benefit of the reader) what happened last time the character was featured.
Overall, I liked the book. I will definitely read the third in the series when I can get my hands on it. Lucky for me, they are already released so I can get straight to it, though due to it's problems I won't rush. show less