In this second book in Currie’s Odyssey One series Captain Eric Stanton and his crew return to the Priminae world of Ranquil just in time to save the day again. This is good rip-roaring military SF that neatly combines both ground action with space action. It is also pretty good hard SF, apart from a few of bits of handwavium like FTL travel and counter mass. The pacing is great (I’m writing this somewhat bleary eyed after a couple of night reading far too late) apart from a couple of flaws mentioned below and the writing is mostly fluid and easily readable, although I did get thrown from time to time by expressions that were almost how I’d say them but not quite; maybe editing errors or maybe just a different Canadian way of saying them. For example “He’d been hoping to see them up a little closer…”; I’d have said either “see them up close” or “see them a little closer.” But this was only occasional and didn’t detract from the book as a whole.
I did have two major complaints however which did detract for me; both associated with the pacing. Currie writes his action scenes well; they are very detailed, quite long, but keep me turning the pages throughout. However he periodically breaks off from the action to give overly detailed info dumps on some piece of military technology. They are certainly relevant to what is happening but the level of detail and history of the development of the technology kills the momentum both abruptly and very frustratingly. One could be forgiven for wondering whether he is a David Weber fan; these digressions are not dissimilar to Weber’s excessively detailed discussions of missiles and missile flights.
In a similar vein Currie also has a tendency to labour some points. For example, the alien enemy – the Drasin – breed very very quickly and in one section of ground action I lost count of how many times (at least half a dozen) he compares them in both narrative and dialogue with rabbits. He does this sort of thing time and time again as if he is worried we may have missed the point already made just a couple of pages previously.
These two complaints were certainly annoying but not deal breakers. For the most part Currie writes excellent page turning action scenes that move along at a cracking pace. His characters are generally likeable if, perhaps, a little two dimensional although all the main protagonists do each have their own distinct characters.
This series provides good, well written, shoot ‘em up, hard, military SF. They may not be greatest pieces of literature ever penned but they are a lot of fun and I will be returning to this series.
4/5 stars
I did have two major complaints however which did detract for me; both associated with the pacing. Currie writes his action scenes well; they are very detailed, quite long, but keep me turning the pages throughout. However he periodically breaks off from the action to give overly detailed info dumps on some piece of military technology. They are certainly relevant to what is happening but the level of detail and history of the development of the technology kills the momentum both abruptly and very frustratingly. One could be forgiven for wondering whether he is a David Weber fan; these digressions are not dissimilar to Weber’s excessively detailed discussions of missiles and missile flights.
In a similar vein Currie also has a tendency to labour some points. For example, the alien enemy – the Drasin – breed very very quickly and in one section of ground action I lost count of how many times (at least half a dozen) he compares them in both narrative and dialogue with rabbits. He does this sort of thing time and time again as if he is worried we may have missed the point already made just a couple of pages previously.
These two complaints were certainly annoying but not deal breakers. For the most part Currie writes excellent page turning action scenes that move along at a cracking pace. His characters are generally likeable if, perhaps, a little two dimensional although all the main protagonists do each have their own distinct characters.
This series provides good, well written, shoot ‘em up, hard, military SF. They may not be greatest pieces of literature ever penned but they are a lot of fun and I will be returning to this series.
4/5 stars
