26th October, 2007
Succession
The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds by Scott Westerfeld.
These aren’t books that I’ve recently read, but while browsing through my bookshelves I realized that I haven’t mentioned them before and, as Mr. Westerfeld isn’t exactly a well-known author outside the realm of young adult fiction, I figured I should put in a blurb about this most excellent story. As an aside, I should mention that the story was originally written as a single document, but some dicks in the publishing/bookselling industry decided that they could make more money by splitting it into two books. That’s right, I said it. Dicks. My suggestion to you is this: before you start reading The Risen Empire, make sure you can easily (and quickly) obtain The Killing of Worlds as you will not want to wait to reach the conclusion. You’ve been warned.
Pure, action-packed sci-fi that definitely is not “young adult”, the author sums it up best:
This was my attempt to write a space opera for my 14-year-old self, who always wanted big, ass-kicking space battles and hostage rescues and armor-suited ground actions, but ones that made some kind of scientific sense. (Um, space ships don’t bank when they turn, Mr. Lucas.) So I started with that most cliched of sf protagonists, the starship captain, threw in every kind of derring-do I could imagine, and still tried to make it a pretty realistic novel. With, you know, characters and stuff.
Really a fun read. Believable characters. Action. Intrigue. My only complaint is that there isn’t more. I hope he decides to re-visit this universe in the future (or at least write more adult-oriented fiction).
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