and finally done on the LTER book
Mar. 29th, 2011 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesWell, books. It was a quartet, released as an ebook reprint in omnibus. The books in question are the Starfarer Quartet by Vonda N McIntyre. Full review to follow, but first impressions are:
Wonderful, wonderful world-building with a description of the maiden voyage of Earth's interstellar ship, and the things its finds Out There.
Good science *and* good emotional interplay.
The people side of it includes the three members of a poly partnership amongst the lead characters - in a world where legally binding romantic partnerships of any sort are mildly unusual.
Too many lead characters, introduced too abruptly, for easy reading to begin with, but makes for greater depth over the long haul.
The first book ends on something that is both a bit of a cliffhanger and resolution of the main plot. It could be read as a standalone. The next three books each end with resolution of the piece of the story arc, but leave the reader expecting to see more arc -- and that includes the last one. It felt to me as if the author had left too many loose ends dangling.
Some of those loose ends *really* needed tying up, to the point where I found it seriously irritating that they weren't. It's not billed as a mystery, but one of the plot threads certainly came over to me as being a mystery, with clues being dropped that the Starfarer crew had got something wrong -- and it was never resolved as to whether they had or not.
Wonderful, wonderful world-building with a description of the maiden voyage of Earth's interstellar ship, and the things its finds Out There.
Good science *and* good emotional interplay.
The people side of it includes the three members of a poly partnership amongst the lead characters - in a world where legally binding romantic partnerships of any sort are mildly unusual.
Too many lead characters, introduced too abruptly, for easy reading to begin with, but makes for greater depth over the long haul.
The first book ends on something that is both a bit of a cliffhanger and resolution of the main plot. It could be read as a standalone. The next three books each end with resolution of the piece of the story arc, but leave the reader expecting to see more arc -- and that includes the last one. It felt to me as if the author had left too many loose ends dangling.
Some of those loose ends *really* needed tying up, to the point where I found it seriously irritating that they weren't. It's not billed as a mystery, but one of the plot threads certainly came over to me as being a mystery, with clues being dropped that the Starfarer crew had got something wrong -- and it was never resolved as to whether they had or not.
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Date: 2011-03-30 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-30 06:26 pm (UTC)Other than that, I would have recommended it to you, and not just for the poly element. I think you'd like this, apart from the same things that annoyed me about the last ten pages. I may have to re-read the last chapter at the weekend and see if I simply missed something through being a bit fuzzy.