I first heard about this novel when one of the authors was on the Dragon Page cover to cover podcast. I thought it sounded very interesting. After years of working on Brian Herbert’s Father’s universe the duo had produced the first novel in a universe they had created by themselves.

Hellhole is a far future novel similar to Dune in only that respect. Earth is a distant memory but still in the memory of the human species. They live among seventy or so worlds. The inner planets are called the crown More...

I picked this up on the strength of Brian Herbert's Dune prequels--they were smart, interesting and well-paced. Sadly, while this novel had a great setup and some potentially interesting characters, it ultimately disappointed with blunt, unsubtle plotting, cliches and black-and-white thinking.

The bad guys are too obviously wrong, and completely lack self-awareness, competence or any semblance of basic morality. The emerging good guys are the opposite--they are supposedly highly advanced and have More...

Last spring I visited a private beach in Georgia. I walked the shoreline, then waded in expecting to get out far enough to swim in the ocean. Unfortunately, when knee deep in the water, before it was deep enough to swim, my feet slid into a trench of silt and muck that sucked me down knee deep into sedimental ooze and I became trapped as though in quicksand.

Apparently, I didn't drown.

But, I very nearly decided not to go swimming that day.

Hellhole is rather like that day at the beach. Before you More...

This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com

Frontier planet Hallholme has earned the moniker Hellhole due to its immensely inhospitable environment: static storms, myriad endemic illnesses, and poor agricultural prospects are just a few of the issues that its down-and-out inhabitants have to deal with. But Hellhole is, after all, a no man’s land that at its best is a dumping ground for the Empire’s unwanted, including General Tiber Adolphus, whose attempt at revolt against the More...

This is an audacious and arrogant attempt to write

AN ALL NEW EPIC!

To do this the authors pull from many of the pivotal science fiction and science fantasy universes in an effort to create a grand new adventure.

By pull from I mean rob at gunpoint, by effort I mean copy and paste, and by adventure I mean sodomized by highwaymen who just robbed you and stole your own work with the kind of plagiarism that only the cleverest of college freshmen try to pull.

Lets see. Star Wars? Check. X-files? Check. More...

Plot holes are like pot holes some time you go over them and sometimes they swallow you whole. To me they were big ones.

The first is the planet hellhole itself. While it is meant as a penal colony and as harsh place to live. The progression from that to the transport hub and not to bad a place to live within ten years on a population of 100,000 and ten years. Certainly there explanations and descriptions to flesh out and explain this miracle but it was all just too good to be true.

The second wa More...

I sort of fallen behind on my "reviewing" of late.

Not that anyone has been exactly shattered by that.

This is a pretty good book. I think the synopsis is a bit misleading. It says that it's a book about survival on a tremendously inhospitable planet where the General and his most loyal followers are exiled. That there they uncover a "cache of alien artifacts".

The story opens with the set up and the exile and then jumps forward 10 years into the future and what they uncover isn't exactly a cache More...

Overall, I thought this first novel in a series was a very good read. The characters were sufficiently established to carry the story arc--unlike some readers, I don't need a full back-story for each character. Their motivations and eventual actions were synchronous for the most part. I also found it refreshing the BH & KJA were able to establish the environment without long passages describing every blade of grass, tree species, and building adornments (some of their Dune novels tended towa More...

After a five-year struggle against the corrupt governemnt of the Constellation, General Tiber Maximilian Adolphus fails to win a crucial battle for the key planet of Sonjeera. But instead of execution, Diadem Michella Duchenet decides to exile him to a bleak planet located in the Deep Zone, a (mostly) unexplored space region comprised of fifty-four planets. Adolphus accepts her decision, despite the Diadem labeling the planet "Hallholme" after the man responsible for defeating him.

Flash forward More...

There are a lot of plots with this book. The book is more battle and science fiction than I ever read-think Star Wars, and I loved it. There is a sweet, grandma faced dictator who wipes out entire races of people without breaking a sweat. Noblemen who are jockeying for the dictator's position after she leaves and all the drama they bring with them. A general who is everything that is good that is defeated within the first 5 pages of the book by said grandma dictator and sentenced to Hellhole whe More...

I was really enjoying this book quite a lot. Other planets, aliens, mysterious alien artifacts, telemancy, good guys and bad guys, and multiple interesting sorylines weaved together in ways that made you want to see how things would play out. I would have liked to read about more hellishness on Hellhole (they skip through most of the colonization) but it was still pretty fascinating.

The only problem was that it ends on a cliffhanger. A "screw you, it's too late now!" ending that leaves you feeli More...

Dear Brian Herbert,

I am writing to inform you that your writing sucks. As in the real world, characters should not be written as purely evil or saccharin-sweetly scrupulous. In the real world, we have shades of grey. Not only are characters written this way more true to life, but they are a hell of a lot more entertaining to read about. The characters in the book were so far from three-dimensional that I want to call them one-dimensional, although thinking about that makes my head hurt. Instead, More...

This book was difficult to read because it was just so boring to read. There are no direct confrontations, except in the prologue and even in that the confrontation isn't that flash. None of the antagonists face each other directly and while I can understand that this is the first novel in a trilogy there is nothing compelling enough to pull readers through to the second or third novel.

There are several problems with the novel, which I'll go through below...

The planet was a hellhole? Really? It More...

...Perhaps it was a bit too much to hope for a fresh start from these two writers but I certainly hadn't expected them to come up with something that's so derivative. That being said, it is not actually a boring read. Herbert and Anderson sacrifice a lot of character development and world building to flit from planet to planet and character to character in order to keep up the relentless pace of the story. We're shown the bare outlines of what is going on, usually with enough history of the char More...

"Hellhole" fits the label epic to a T--with a cast of thousands, multiple storylines, etc. At its heart, it's the story of a General outcast after losing a battle for freedom against a ruthless dictator. Settled with his supporters on a barren planet considered almost uninhabitable, he's managed to make a life there and even some allies. Now he's on the verge of unleashing his great plan: "Destination Day," a new declaration of freedom. As the General, Tiber Adolphus, and his underlings make fin More...

Brain Herbert should have left the writing to his dad.

That may seem harsh, but this book is only a pale shadow of the original Dune novel. Although I found the idea of an aristocratic society ruling entire planets in an "enlightened" future hard to believe, Frank Herbert made up for it with his eloquent writing and imaginative characters. This book reminds me of a plaigarized amalgamation of Dune and other space operas I have read, and maybe a few Star Trek episodes. The authors REPEAT themselve More...

Hellhole
By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Publisher: Tor
Published In: New York, NY
Date: 2011
Pgs: 532

Summary:
Hellhole, the last stop for those trying to make a new start. A shattered world subjected to an asteroid impact in the recent geologic past. The end of the line in the Deep Zone, the recently colonized part of The Constellation. Here the rebel General Adolphus is exiled. Expected to fail and die on the hellish planet, the General makes a go of it. Abiding by his terms of surrender…unti More...

The blurb above is somewhat misleading since the novel is classic space opera in the style of KJA' Seven Suns and follows the absolute same narrative structure with various pov's (good, bad, unclear which, but mostly good/bad) in various threads, in various locations throughout the settled universe - here there are 20 core-worlds exploiting 54 colony worlds of which the so called Hellhole is just one though it is quickly clear it will be the most important - threads that intertwine, separate... More...

Okay, I checked out a handful of reviews, and yeah, some of them say the characters are two-dimensional, the dialog is clunky, and there's a lot of exposition that's repetitive, but I enjoyed the hell out of this book. It's got big ideas and big adventure and tons of action and adventure. Very creative! It is a thoroughly modern Golden Age space opera, and it is the first book I've read in decades that brought back that "sense of wonder" I experienced when I first read Science Fiction when I was More...

For a 500 page novel this was a breezy easy quick read. Nice short chapters keep one turning the pages. It's a space opera but the science in this science fiction is so soft it's so much closer to a fantasy novel. And I don't mean just the future tech. It's a high epic fantasy novel in every way. The evil Empress, nobles and Barons, magic bread crumbs that trail high speed travel between planets, etc. The thing I had trouble with was that it's written from a distance. The authors don't get insid More...

I bought this book from the Salvos for 50 cents, if I've paid more I wouldn't be happy. Firstly, be aware that this is the first in the trilogy, and ends at a cliffhanger. Nowhere in the book or the cover it says this is the first in the series. Anyway, this is what I think:

The plot is good. It has everything a good space opera should have - good guys, bad guys, grand scale conflict, a bit of mystery. But to me it reads like first draft, something sketched, unfinished. Characters, worlds lack de More...

Herbert and Anderson are generally among my least favourite authors, because of all the interminable and generally meaningless prequels and interquels they've seen fit to add to Frank Herbert's majestic Dune series. So it is refreshing to see that when they step away from the cash cow and do something for themselves, they do it well. This is not ground-breaking science-fiction that will open new conceptual vistas. It is space opera. But it is GOOD space opera. Think David Weber, John Ringo and s More...

Judged on its own performance, Hellhole is a fun space opera; hardly artful or incisive, but would likely make a good mini-series. Yet comparisons with Frank Herbert’s seminal masterpiece are inevitable, particularly when both books concern planetary politics, alien races, strange religious beliefs, and mad dictators intent on galaxy domination. Dune was almost biblical in its construction, an expansive, encompassing, engrossing piece of world-building that meticulously crafted theological under More...

I just finished reading this book, and I have to say wow. I was immediately hooked after the preface, where we immediately jump into the back story of a brilliantly written General on the day of biggest defeat. From there, we jump into a well thought out plot that has surprises that are that very rare thing, a surprise. I usually find myself knowing the outcome of a book about midway through, yet with this novel, I found myself pleasantly, and unpleasantly, surprised by the events of each charac More...

Well I got half way through this book and decided to quit it. I skimmed through as well and it looks like I'm not missing much. I'm disappointed in this one a lot because I've read these guys Dune Trilogy and like it, in fact I want to read it again some day too. This book however just doesn't go anywhere at all and there's no action or hardly anything I'd consider Sci-fi too! I think the only action in the first 100 pages is an electrical storm. I understand it's book 1 of 3 but hell there's a More...

I "read" the audio book version of Hell Hole and found it virtual page turner. I enjoyed this book so much, I didn't mind getting stuck in traffic. This sci-fi thriller spans about five years as a group of defeated pro-democracy rebels, banished to a planet they call Hell Hole, plot their independence from the oligarchic "Constellation" and its hated rule, the Diadem. The characters are well rounded and sympathetic. This is the first of a series, and I was disappointed with the cliff-hanger endi More...

This is a typical Kevin Anderson book - short, snappy chapters, multitude of characters, fast paced action and a satisfying story. My only complaint is that the story is somewhat formulaic and that it is predictable. I think I am spoiled by the utter superbness of the Saga of the Seven Suns series and I have yet to read any up to that level since.

If you are a KJA fan you will love this book, but if you thinking of reading him for the first time, read the Seven Suns saga.

Despite all this I am loo More...

When I first started seeing hype about this book, I knew I had to read it. Kevin J. Anderson is one of my favorite authors EVER, and I'll read anything he's written. And Brian Herbert, well, you may have heard of his dad...Frank Herbert...of Dune fame. Plus he went on to write several more books in the Dune series. So yeah. This was a big deal.

I started reading the second I got the book from the library (They took forever to order it. LAME!). At first, I had a hard time following the action beca More...

Very good sci-fi adventure. I was intrigued by the different planets and the politics were interesting without being overly convoluted just for the sake of surprise twists. The characters were distinct and interesting. Sure, they could have been developed a bit more, but I think with the huge scope of this story it's just fine. There re issues of course with this book, but i found it to be good action-movie style entertainment. I'll definitely read the next books and I can't wait to see what hap More...

I can’t help but regard Hellhole as a gateway novel to contemporary space opera. It’s the sort of fantastical science fiction that immerses you not merely into a scattering of new ideas, but into an entirely new setting. Like a lot of works in this subgenre, it's got a large cast of characters, it cuts frequently back and forth between many realms and events, and centers more on the story itself than the scientific explanations behind the technology. I found the narrative eased me into every fac More...