Lee Haslup

An old fashioned book- for better or worse

Revisado: 10-25-22

if you read the other reviews of this book you will find it to be a referendum on old-fashioned values and writing style. The all of the major characters in the book are devout christians (of various stripes) and the book devotes several chapters exclusively to religious services in which they participated. The book also has an almost Victorian sentimentality that those who prefer a more modern style may find mawkish. Readers not put off by the book's religiosity and it's turn of the twentieth century sentimentality will enjoy a fresh retelling of the Titanic's sinking from a different viewpoint. The book is very well researched and very lightly fictionalized. It might have been more exciting if she had invented more characters to provide drama; Almost everyone in the story behaves very well in a trying situation and none of the major characters have demons against which to struggle.
As to the performances, the book contains several hymns that run to several verses on the text and the female narrator has a fine voice and did very creditable Acapella renditions.

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my optional heading for my review as required

Revisado: 03-15-22

The characters are likable and the story is interesting if a bit episodic. The last section of the book introduces too many characters too quickly and I had a bit of trouble sorting them out.

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A futuristic version of 1984 using 1950s tech

Revisado: 11-02-21

I'm not sure if there is a genre to describe this. Midcentury techno-punk? Retro-noir? It's a gritty, dark, alternate history where instead of the cold war, a dystopian society emerges after WWII, orchestrated by a ubiquitous mind-control network possibly more evil than today's Internet, if such a thing can be imagined.
The performance is excellent and the story keeps you involved. The ending is thoroughly telegraphed and is a surprise only in being a better-written version of exactly what you expect.

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Narrator worked too hard

Revisado: 09-09-21

The narrator did a number of voices and accents. They were believable but occasionally hard to understand. I wish he had read the main characters more plainly.

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Good story, perfectly OK performance.

Revisado: 06-04-21

Excellent world building and a good solid story. The three books in the collection tell a complete story and the ending is satisfying enough that you don't reach the end to find a cliffhanger. But there are characters and subplots that are only there to populate additional volumes (another trilogy that the author is working on) so you can keep an eye out for more books but if you hate waiting for that next book in a series these three are safe to read now.
I've seen other reviews that ding the narration but while some of the voices he voted are a bit florid, the trading worked well enough for me.

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Good but not Perfect

Revisado: 03-09-18

Exciting but a few too many lose ends if this book ends the series. I would have liked another chapter or two... or one more book.

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Excellent Dog-Walking Audiobook.

Revisado: 09-20-17

If you are a teenager who loves space opera stop reading this review NOW.

Still here, youngsters? Well you really should stop reading this. The trilogy is perfect.

So, older readers, now that we are alone...

This trilogy is fun to read and the narrator does a good job... mostly... there are a few fluffs and stumbles and a couple of wrong-name problems but overall the narrator does fine.

The characters are likable, interesting, and well drawn if entirely two dimensional. The writing is spritely and engaging and the plot makes sense.

But... The author likes to throw in oddball notions every couple of chapters. Some of them work out OK -- The "Helios Gate" idea, for instance, is odd but he makes it work for him -- but other oddball notions are simply too gooney to pull off. These off-puttingly silly notions accumulate during the three books and by the time we get to the end of the third book it is hard not to step out of the story for an occasional Mystery Science 3000 -style guffaw.

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The World, Series, and Book: Concentric Reviews

Revisado: 09-15-17

The World of Dimatr:

Dimatr is nicely fleshed out and populated with enough interesting characters to give Campbell's sturdy storytelling a worthy venue. It's a little hard to characterize the stories of Dimatr. When I started reading the first book it seemed a bit like a Star Trek holodeck drama with recognizable Star Trek character types interacting in an early-technology setting. Ones initial impression of Dimatr's "mages" is that they are Vulcans without the pointy ears, but that recedes into the background as they develop characteristics uniquely their own. The "mechanics guild" also has echos of Trek's "engineering" red shirts gone rogue. But as the world unfolds we see similarities to other created worlds, most notably to Marian Zimmer Bradley's Darkover.

The stories of Dimatr are clearly targetted at the "Young Adult" market although they can be enjoyed by all ages. The characters are interesting and well-drawn if a trifle uncomplicated. As are most books for younger readers these are coming-of-age stories.

The Legacy of Dragons Series:

These are the further adventures of characters from Campbell's previous six-novel series -- the Pillars of Reality -- with some new characters thrown in. I was tempted to wait for Campbell to finish this new series before I got into it -- so as not to disturb my sense of closure from the Pillars of Reality -- but Campbell seems to be making the books in this new series nicely episodic. For the most part the major problems introduced are solved by the end of each book. There is enough of an arc to the overall story to keep the reader waiting for the next book but not enough to make that wait miserable.

Blood of Dragons:

This is the second book in Campbell's new Legacy of Dragons series and it is a very competent piece of storytelling. If you haven't read the first book in the series I'd start there, and what's more, if you haven't read the first six books you'll probably want to read them before getting into this new series at all.

There are no particular surprises in this book. Campbell isn't given to complicated plot twists. The pleasure in reading his books is watching the story unfold, not in trying to guess what will happen. In the Blood of Dragons this predictability extends into the future. Campbell has dropped enough hints to allow the plot of Book 3 to be sketched in some detail with a few bits left over for the book after that.

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