Lyle

The author weaves a complex and satisfying tale of a planetary ecological investigation and political and economic machinations to great effect. The protagonist is a well-developed character, of the type very much worth rooting for, and the ancillary characters are more than cardboard as well, and the environmental descriptions are top-notch.

This science fiction novel starts out strong and never lets up! An astrophysicist on the lunar farside studying solar phenomena detects something out of the ordinary. A military pilot normally limited to ferrying dignitaries and other personnel around the Terra-Luna system gets tapped for an unusual mission. Tensions rise between world powers as they struggle to maintain things in a world suffering from climate change impacts and political machinations. This is the world of the near future and life is about to get very interesting...for everyone.

The concept was unusual, I give the author kudos for that, but I think it would have been better for the story had it been a bit longer in the telling. There wasn't really enough time to get to know the characters, I thought, and the discussion moved too quickly through the various topics to be considered reasonable. There was a lot of potential here, and I felt most of it was, not wasted exactly, but rather ignored.

A wonderful romp through the virtual world(s) that make up part of the “Thousand Tales” universe created by author Kris Schnee. The descriptions of the game worlds and the characters met therein were nicely done, and bode well for other books and stories in this series. The author mentioned within the book's notes that this was intended as an introduction, and it served that purpose well, IMO.

This omnibus was a mixed bag for me: the first book (Independence Day), especially compared to the cinematic film, seemed sparse and somewhat lacking in the expository content I had hoped to find. The next book (Silent Zone, back story of Dr. Brackish Okun) seemed better, if only because it contained new information (at least new to me) and explored the Dr. Okun character in some detail. Finally, the third book (War in the Desert) was the best of the three, with well-developed characters and lots of action; a very suitable companion piece to the rest of the stories.

Wonderful mix of alien culture, epic universal history, end-of-the-world danger, and of humans (and aliens) rising above the status-quo to transcend political self-interest for the greater good. Well-developed characters and exquisite descriptive prose, especially concerning the Jovians and their realms.

Very light on the science but what little there was I think was fairly well developed. Others have characterized this tale as “character-driven” and I can see why, but for me the characters were not as well-developed as they could (should?) have been with some (much) of the dialogue and behaviors seeming just a bit “off”. If not for the tertiary science thread and brief environmental descriptions, this could have taken place anywhere, even on Earth. Even the science thread could have been handled from an Earth-based locale for that matter, without much tweaking.