Seeds of Earth

A bold, galaxy sweeping story where you're even willing to overlook how central humanity can be to Solving Everything(tm) - if only it wasn't underwhelmed by poor writing and execution. To be fair, I have the same opinion of other popular space operatic series, bringing to question my tastes and opinions, but between the constant info dump and poor writing technique, I was left bored and unintrigued for most of the book.

Mixed bag........................not convinced about the storyline, but good characterization and writing style grew on me (or matured) the further I got into the book. Will need to read book two though!

This was good, but by no means great. The writing could have been... I dunno what to call it exactly. Everything is written in a fairly simple form; declarative sentences, everything described. Characters and their relationships are very thin. Periodically, you'll hear or read of writing described as being written at a "college level" or "high school level." I'd say that this book could comfortably be enjoyed by someone in middle school.

That said, I like the story arc. And it is good pop sci-fi! Good summer reading, or reading between more serious stuff. Not everything has to be a timeless classic :)

Three/five stars.

Seeds of Earth is not for the faint of heart, let's give SF a try, kinda read. This IS science fiction. It will slam you with detail, spin you around while throwing alien races at you faster than you can successfully imagine them, all to weave you into a political plot involving half the universe while keeping the story intimate. I can't wait to read books 2 and 3.

For my full looney review: http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2014/12/seeking-clarity-of-mind-review-of-s...

Seeds of Earth is not for the faint of heart, let's give SF a try, kinda read. This IS science fiction. It will slam you with detail, spin you around while throwing alien races at you faster than you can successfully imagine them, all to weave you into a political plot involving half the universe while keeping the story intimate. I can't wait to read books 2 and 3.

For my full looney review: http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2014/12/seeking-clarity-of-mind-review-of-s...

This is the first novel of a space opera trilogy called Humanity's Fire. I'd read in several reviews that the book was slow to start but picked up about halfway through. I'd interpreted this to mean there was a steep learning curve. It's not uncommon in space opera. The author has to lay out their universe and it's usually a big universe.

But those reviews were quite correct. Cobley's universe is perhaps not that large - although he's certainly thrown everything he can think of into it. Seeds of Earth is very much heartland space opera - in fact, it sits right on the bullseye. While this does mean there's a lot of set-up to plough through - including a somewhat excessive use of italicised alien vocabulary - it's not just that which show more accounts for the initial slow pace. However, once the villains appear on the scene the story shifts into high gear, and the book becomes a real page-turner.

See the rest of the review at: http://justhastobeplausible.blogspot.com/2009/03/pure-space-opera-seeds-of-earth... show less

I'm not really certain why I had trouble following this book. It wasn't really holding me -- but that could have been external circumstances as much as the book.

Insofar as the book itself goes -- it's got the elements of really epic space opera that I truly enjoy converging on a single point, and I'm thinking I may end up enjoying book two even more than book one. Slow burn, yes -- but I think it'll be a good one.