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Draka #4
Drakon
Detective Lt. Henry Carmaggio has seen plenty of blood in his 20 years of police work in New York. He'd never seen anything like the Warehouse Massacre. Gwendolyn had been too close to the molehole experiment when it went wrong and hurled her into a parallel Earth. Now, as a member of the Draka Master Race her duty is clear--come back and conquer all.
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
21 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
S.M. Stirling
170 books1,646 followersStephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. Stirling is probably best known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.
MINI AUTO-BIOGRAPHY:
(personal website: source)
I’m a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, living in New Mexico at present. My hobbies are mostly related to the craft. I love history, anthropology and archaeology, and am interested in the sciences. The martial arts are my main physical hobby.
MINI AUTO-BIOGRAPHY:
(personal website: source)
I’m a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, living in New Mexico at present. My hobbies are mostly related to the craft. I love history, anthropology and archaeology, and am interested in the sciences. The martial arts are my main physical hobby.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
October 31, 2013
Alternate History is one of the most interesting forms of Sci-Fi, the key to which is getting the reader to suspend belief and buy into the different reality. The Domination Trilogy was Stirling’s first published foray into the AH genre, and I kept getting sidetracked when reading the books on historical divergences that I did not buy. Drakon is the work of a more mature writer and it shows. Only once did I stop and question the author’s logic: I couldn’t figure out why one of the good guys didn’t simply put a .50 caliber bullet from a Barrett sniper rifle into her head; they kept trying to kill the superwoman close in.
That is really nitpicking, however. This is a good read and any Stirling fan will enjoy it. It is close to being my favorite Stirling novel. The plot is intricate, the writing is good, the characters are realistic, including the featured and minors, and the story does not drag. He makes the interplay between 1999 Earth and the technology of 2442 believable. Good stuff.
http://homeofreading.com/drakon/
That is really nitpicking, however. This is a good read and any Stirling fan will enjoy it. It is close to being my favorite Stirling novel. The plot is intricate, the writing is good, the characters are realistic, including the featured and minors, and the story does not drag. He makes the interplay between 1999 Earth and the technology of 2442 believable. Good stuff.
http://homeofreading.com/drakon/
March 27, 2011
The series consists of four novels, though the first three are now published in one omnibus entitled The Domination.
* Marching through Georgia
* Under the Yoke
* The Stone Dogs
* Drakon
The series can really shake you up. It is set in an alternate history in which the Crown Colony of the Cape (what later became modern day South Africa) becomes a powerful nation. This “Domination of the Draka” is utterly elitist and wishes to subjugate all other races to the white master race. It is also fiercely expansionist. At the time of our own timeline’s Second World War, the Domination drives a wedge between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany by invading through the Caucasus. The Domination then proceeds to conquer all of Europe and Asia (except for India), adding these territories to its African holdings. These events are detailed in the first book. The second book is about a spy expedition into Draka territory by the “Alliance for Freedom”, basically what is left of the free world (America and India). It is not quite as good as the rest of the series, and on rereading I have skipped over it completely as it is not essential to the story. The third book is about the final showdown between the two powers. The Alliance is more powerful in technology and the physical sciences, while the Domination, mostly thanks to a scruple free approach to human experiments (they’re just serfs, after all) is very advanced in genetics and bioengineering. The Draka win the war, and the “free” humans mount a last-ditch escape for a precious few to a nearby solar system.
Drakon is a change of pace. In a Draka future, the master race experiments with portals into alternate timelines. A Draka (daughter of the protagonists from The Stone Dogs) is stranded in one of these timelines (our own) and attempts to subjugate it to her will. This novel is much smaller in scope than the other three, but it remains a great read.
The scary thing about the Draka books is that you can easily find yourself rooting for “the bad guys”. These aren’t Hitler’s Nazis. The Draka want an ordered society and a life which does not use up the Earth’s resources without replenishing them. They do not see their use of “serfs” as immoral and they are not given to pettiness. Only ruthlessness. So apart from spinning a great yarn, Stirling is trying to tell us that many would choose the Draka way of life if they had the chance (well, the chance to be Draka). The Draka create an earthly paradise after their victory, and the average standard of living and intelligence of ALL men, including serfs, actually improves after the Draka victory. The series is controversial in this manner and really makes you think about some big issues. It is also a great military science fiction read.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=285
* Marching through Georgia
* Under the Yoke
* The Stone Dogs
* Drakon
The series can really shake you up. It is set in an alternate history in which the Crown Colony of the Cape (what later became modern day South Africa) becomes a powerful nation. This “Domination of the Draka” is utterly elitist and wishes to subjugate all other races to the white master race. It is also fiercely expansionist. At the time of our own timeline’s Second World War, the Domination drives a wedge between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany by invading through the Caucasus. The Domination then proceeds to conquer all of Europe and Asia (except for India), adding these territories to its African holdings. These events are detailed in the first book. The second book is about a spy expedition into Draka territory by the “Alliance for Freedom”, basically what is left of the free world (America and India). It is not quite as good as the rest of the series, and on rereading I have skipped over it completely as it is not essential to the story. The third book is about the final showdown between the two powers. The Alliance is more powerful in technology and the physical sciences, while the Domination, mostly thanks to a scruple free approach to human experiments (they’re just serfs, after all) is very advanced in genetics and bioengineering. The Draka win the war, and the “free” humans mount a last-ditch escape for a precious few to a nearby solar system.
Drakon is a change of pace. In a Draka future, the master race experiments with portals into alternate timelines. A Draka (daughter of the protagonists from The Stone Dogs) is stranded in one of these timelines (our own) and attempts to subjugate it to her will. This novel is much smaller in scope than the other three, but it remains a great read.
The scary thing about the Draka books is that you can easily find yourself rooting for “the bad guys”. These aren’t Hitler’s Nazis. The Draka want an ordered society and a life which does not use up the Earth’s resources without replenishing them. They do not see their use of “serfs” as immoral and they are not given to pettiness. Only ruthlessness. So apart from spinning a great yarn, Stirling is trying to tell us that many would choose the Draka way of life if they had the chance (well, the chance to be Draka). The Draka create an earthly paradise after their victory, and the average standard of living and intelligence of ALL men, including serfs, actually improves after the Draka victory. The series is controversial in this manner and really makes you think about some big issues. It is also a great military science fiction read.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=285
June 29, 2014
I liked this one the best of the Draka books. In the 2400s, in the Draka universe, Gwen Ingolfsson gets too close to a wormhole experiment that goes awry. Thus, she gets shifted to an alternate Earth: ours, in the late 1990s. Well, maybe not ours exactly. I'd like to think she got shifted to the alternate Earth where I managed to get all the hot girls I lusted after in high school (assuming, hopefully, that there is such a possible world).
After getting her bearings, Gwen commences her nefarious plot to take over the planet. In her first three years, she introduces a microbe that eats oil spills without any adverse side effect. She gives the U.S. government access to superconductors that will increase energy efficiency many-fold, and make the US entirely independent of foreign oil. Worse, she markets a new algae that desalinates ocean water for almost no cost, and will solve the water shortage problem in the U.S. West and in other desert areas, making it possible to make, for example, the Sahara into a garden spot. Clearly, this woman must be stopped.
Fortunately, there's a badass detective from Manhattan who is on her trail. And the remnants of the humans from Alpha Centari have sent a cyber-warrior to chase her down. The cop is after her because she killed twenty drug dealers immediately following her arrival, using her knife, her bare hands, and one shot from her ray gun. She also killed an investment banker and stored his cut up body in the fridge, so she could use his apartment for a while before the smell got too bad. The cyber-warrior is after her because he's trying to save this human race from the horrors of the Draka: horrors like plentiful drinking water, limitless energy supplies, and a cleaner environment.
Actually, Gwen is a seriously bad person, and despite the great things she's done, it's still very easy to root against her. The end result of a Draka dominated universe is troubling, because it seems like its probably a pretty good place. But how can it be good, if its run by such predatory assholes? This is a lingering question that haunts this book. Yes, I'm rooting against the Draka here, but the alternative doesn't sound all that great either. People, left on their own, are probably either going to destroy the planet or themselves.
Forget the ideas, though. This is a well paced, and entertaining action thriller. It's the sort of thing that Stirling does very well, and he pulls this one off. Better, I don't think you would need to read any of the first three books to understand this one. It stands on its own, while being a perfectly fine sequel. All in all, this is very well done.
After getting her bearings, Gwen commences her nefarious plot to take over the planet. In her first three years, she introduces a microbe that eats oil spills without any adverse side effect. She gives the U.S. government access to superconductors that will increase energy efficiency many-fold, and make the US entirely independent of foreign oil. Worse, she markets a new algae that desalinates ocean water for almost no cost, and will solve the water shortage problem in the U.S. West and in other desert areas, making it possible to make, for example, the Sahara into a garden spot. Clearly, this woman must be stopped.
Fortunately, there's a badass detective from Manhattan who is on her trail. And the remnants of the humans from Alpha Centari have sent a cyber-warrior to chase her down. The cop is after her because she killed twenty drug dealers immediately following her arrival, using her knife, her bare hands, and one shot from her ray gun. She also killed an investment banker and stored his cut up body in the fridge, so she could use his apartment for a while before the smell got too bad. The cyber-warrior is after her because he's trying to save this human race from the horrors of the Draka: horrors like plentiful drinking water, limitless energy supplies, and a cleaner environment.
Actually, Gwen is a seriously bad person, and despite the great things she's done, it's still very easy to root against her. The end result of a Draka dominated universe is troubling, because it seems like its probably a pretty good place. But how can it be good, if its run by such predatory assholes? This is a lingering question that haunts this book. Yes, I'm rooting against the Draka here, but the alternative doesn't sound all that great either. People, left on their own, are probably either going to destroy the planet or themselves.
Forget the ideas, though. This is a well paced, and entertaining action thriller. It's the sort of thing that Stirling does very well, and he pulls this one off. Better, I don't think you would need to read any of the first three books to understand this one. It stands on its own, while being a perfectly fine sequel. All in all, this is very well done.
February 2, 2020
There is a woman like species. She is genetically spliced with dragon DNA. She travels from the future. She has to protect a weak man. They do all these battles with wolf people dog people aliens. Lots of action space ship battles. Combat inside ships and on alien planets. They defeat the bad guy boss then merry and have babys.
Read
March 7, 2021Drakon, by S.M. Stirling, continues the saga of the Draka from Marching Through Georgia, Under the Yoke, and The Stone Dogs. The Draka, having left Earth and colonized the Solar System, as well as several of the neighboring star systems, have bioengineered themselves into Homo Drakensis, faster, stronger, smarter, nearly impossible to kill, and effectively immortal. The remaining humans in their empire, a handful of the billions that once lived on Earth, have been genetically altered to become Homo Servus, with all trace of aggression or resistance gone, living only to serve the Draka masters. The fly in the cosmic ointment, however, is the remnants of the American-led Alliance have also survived on Alpha Centauri and some other systems, and are still working hard to counter the Draka menace.
Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, one of the elite Draka in charge of a research team creating moleholes (an FTL shortcut to other space-time loci) is caught up in one during an accident and ends up in an alternate universe, a parallel Earth (recognizably our own) where the Draka never existed. Stranded in a technologically backward universe, she decides she must either conquer this new world for the Draka all by herself, or find a way to signal her own people so that they can join her in conquest. The Draka have a total disregard for normal human life, since they regard them as little more than animals, useful as servants and sexual toys, and from the moment she is marooned on Earth, she casually and brutally kills anyone who stands in her way.
Her killings attract the attention of Henry Carmaggio, an Italian police detective, who joins forces with Kenneth LaFarge, a cybernetically enhanced member of the Alliance who has been sent through another molehole to track Ingolfsson down and kill her before she can fulfill her destiny. She quickly establishes herself as a force to be reckoned with in the business community by licensing out bits and pieces of high tech from the future whence she comes, especially biotechnology, at which the Draka are unexcelled. She and her human cohorts, whom she keeps loyal to her by sheer physical intimidation and her conscious control of enhanced pheromones, rapidly move to secure Gwendolyn’s objectives, while Carmaggio and LaFarge are handicapped because they are unable to tell anyone about this space invader or risk being locked up in some mental ward.
Like Stirling’s earlier works in the series, this one can be pretty brutal, with lots of blood and guts, and some fairly explicit sex scenes. If you’ve been reading the earlier ones, though, the Drakon is not nearly as cruel as some of the ones in Marching Through Georgia or Under the Yoke. Some of the Draka in those seemed to take delight in human suffering, but evidently Gwendolyn comes from a more sophisticated age when humans have been subservient so long that harsh measures are no longer necessary, so this colors her attitudes, making her a more enlightened slave owner, if such an oxymoron can exist.
Most of the plot is pretty predictable, nothing we haven’t seen before in a hundred works. The one thing that Stirling does a good job of is getting into Gwendolyn’s head and creating thoughts that are internally consistent and quite revealing about the way a member of the master race thinks. If Stirling were more subtle in other places in his works, I’d suspect him of some backhanded commentary on racially motivated hate groups, but most modern day white supremacists don’t seem to have enough emotional detachment to be proper Draka. I’m hoping Stirling doesn’t end up like John Norman did with his Gor series, degenerating into endless master/slave fantasies without benefit of a new plot or idea for the last dozen books or so.
If you’ve been following the series, then you ought to read this one just to keep up, but aside from a few hours of mind-numbing entertainment, it doesn’t have a lot to recommend it.
Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, one of the elite Draka in charge of a research team creating moleholes (an FTL shortcut to other space-time loci) is caught up in one during an accident and ends up in an alternate universe, a parallel Earth (recognizably our own) where the Draka never existed. Stranded in a technologically backward universe, she decides she must either conquer this new world for the Draka all by herself, or find a way to signal her own people so that they can join her in conquest. The Draka have a total disregard for normal human life, since they regard them as little more than animals, useful as servants and sexual toys, and from the moment she is marooned on Earth, she casually and brutally kills anyone who stands in her way.
Her killings attract the attention of Henry Carmaggio, an Italian police detective, who joins forces with Kenneth LaFarge, a cybernetically enhanced member of the Alliance who has been sent through another molehole to track Ingolfsson down and kill her before she can fulfill her destiny. She quickly establishes herself as a force to be reckoned with in the business community by licensing out bits and pieces of high tech from the future whence she comes, especially biotechnology, at which the Draka are unexcelled. She and her human cohorts, whom she keeps loyal to her by sheer physical intimidation and her conscious control of enhanced pheromones, rapidly move to secure Gwendolyn’s objectives, while Carmaggio and LaFarge are handicapped because they are unable to tell anyone about this space invader or risk being locked up in some mental ward.
Like Stirling’s earlier works in the series, this one can be pretty brutal, with lots of blood and guts, and some fairly explicit sex scenes. If you’ve been reading the earlier ones, though, the Drakon is not nearly as cruel as some of the ones in Marching Through Georgia or Under the Yoke. Some of the Draka in those seemed to take delight in human suffering, but evidently Gwendolyn comes from a more sophisticated age when humans have been subservient so long that harsh measures are no longer necessary, so this colors her attitudes, making her a more enlightened slave owner, if such an oxymoron can exist.
Most of the plot is pretty predictable, nothing we haven’t seen before in a hundred works. The one thing that Stirling does a good job of is getting into Gwendolyn’s head and creating thoughts that are internally consistent and quite revealing about the way a member of the master race thinks. If Stirling were more subtle in other places in his works, I’d suspect him of some backhanded commentary on racially motivated hate groups, but most modern day white supremacists don’t seem to have enough emotional detachment to be proper Draka. I’m hoping Stirling doesn’t end up like John Norman did with his Gor series, degenerating into endless master/slave fantasies without benefit of a new plot or idea for the last dozen books or so.
If you’ve been following the series, then you ought to read this one just to keep up, but aside from a few hours of mind-numbing entertainment, it doesn’t have a lot to recommend it.
September 4, 2024
Surprisingly, I enjoyed this volume the most of the Draka series. As others have mentioned, maybe because it was more focused and "small," but I found it all quite engaging. That's not to disparage the series as a whole, which I did quite enjoy. Stirling created an alternate history, soon blending into science fiction, which is equally terrifying and engaging. His ability to build a world, which simultaneously seems plausible and absurd is quite a feat. I appreciate how he is able to create antagonists who are absolutely reprehensible, and yet with glimmers of qualities which make the reader almost rooting for them at times. It's fascinating that the undoubted villains of this series are so compelling that the reader can endlessly debate about them. The world Stirling created is terrifying and beyond belief, but somehow also feels vast and real. I contrast this with some other alternative history authors, like Harry Turtledove, who somehow manage to do the opposite. In the formers Southern victory series, which by all rights should be incredibly engaging, I was always very aware that I was reading a ridiculous story, the world felt small, and not to put too fine a point on it, stupid. Stirling took a much more ridiculous concept, but was able to build a universe I felt invested in throughout.
December 11, 2023
This fourth installation of the Draka series returns to the feel of the first: it's more personal, more condensed. The stakes may be civilisation as we know it, but the conflict plays out between individuals. And it brings into play an element that was not present in the first three volumes: asymmetry. In the battle between advanced technology and a billions-strong culture, the balance rests on the edge of a knife until the last moment, when it is toppled. A worthy conclusion.
February 10, 2019
Quite a change!
This book 4 of the Draka series was so different from the first three. I like the change in the story setting of an alternate universe. Stirling really threw in some interesting changes by bringing it in to a more familiar reality. And by holding the outcome in doubt so long made for some heart pounding moment.
As usual I look forward to the next installment.
This book 4 of the Draka series was so different from the first three. I like the change in the story setting of an alternate universe. Stirling really threw in some interesting changes by bringing it in to a more familiar reality. And by holding the outcome in doubt so long made for some heart pounding moment.
As usual I look forward to the next installment.
March 4, 2019
Different, no real military action, but lots of thriller action. I still cannot help rooting for the "bad" Draka!
February 23, 2025
This is about an almost-invulnerable superbeing from a parallel world who arrives suddenly in our world and goes around ruthlessly killing people, pursued by a somewhat more vulnerable adversary from the same parallel world. Sounds familiar?
Well, it’s not the same story nor the same scenario as The Terminator, but there are certain similarities.
Stirling writes with his usual high level of competence, the story flows readably, and there are a few mildly likeable characters. On second reading, I’ve decided to uprate it from 2 to 3 stars, because it does make an exciting story.
However, the attitudes and behaviour of the Draka are basically repulsive; so, if you read any Draka book, be prepared for a strong dose of repulsiveness. You have been warned. For large parts of this book, only one Draka is present in the story, but that’s more than enough.
I haven’t read the other books in the Draka series, although I read the free initial chapters of the first one (Marching Through Georgia) as published on Stirling’s website. I don’t feel good reading about the Draka.
I bought this one on whim in 2012 because I happened to notice the Kindle version and it wasn’t expensive.
I like Stirling as a writer, but I’m quite often disappointed at the things he chooses to write about.
In this case, it’s as though he saw a Doctor Who story involving the Daleks sometime, and he thought, “No! Are these pathetic things supposed to be super-Nazis? I could do a much better job of designing super-Nazis.” And so he did. I’m not convinced that the creation of the Draka was useful or life-enhancing, but perhaps it illustrates the human fascination with creation for its own sake.
Well, it’s not the same story nor the same scenario as The Terminator, but there are certain similarities.
Stirling writes with his usual high level of competence, the story flows readably, and there are a few mildly likeable characters. On second reading, I’ve decided to uprate it from 2 to 3 stars, because it does make an exciting story.
However, the attitudes and behaviour of the Draka are basically repulsive; so, if you read any Draka book, be prepared for a strong dose of repulsiveness. You have been warned. For large parts of this book, only one Draka is present in the story, but that’s more than enough.
I haven’t read the other books in the Draka series, although I read the free initial chapters of the first one (Marching Through Georgia) as published on Stirling’s website. I don’t feel good reading about the Draka.
I bought this one on whim in 2012 because I happened to notice the Kindle version and it wasn’t expensive.
I like Stirling as a writer, but I’m quite often disappointed at the things he chooses to write about.
In this case, it’s as though he saw a Doctor Who story involving the Daleks sometime, and he thought, “No! Are these pathetic things supposed to be super-Nazis? I could do a much better job of designing super-Nazis.” And so he did. I’m not convinced that the creation of the Draka was useful or life-enhancing, but perhaps it illustrates the human fascination with creation for its own sake.
September 30, 2018
A+, best of the Draka books. I've now read it four times (I think), and it's still a great book. Made my personal Top 20 Ever list in 2004. Compulsively readable, and highly recommended.
Gwen Ingolffson, the titular Drakon, is dumped alone into (almost) OTL in a failed wormhole experiment. A good Drakon superwoman, she makes First Contact by performing a mass-murder, and moves smoothly on towards World Domination. Gwen is SF's best female antihero, truly a lovely monster.
DRAKON is the only standalone Draka book, the sexiest, and the least gory, so if you haven't tried the Drakaverse, this is the place to start.
The ending is perfunctory (but includes a neat reference to Niven's "All the Myriad Ways"!), with a nice leadin to the planned sequel, "Unto Us a Child". Which, sadly, was never finished. Here's the story, as of some years ago: https://www.leighkimmel.com/reading/e... Pity.
There are various fannish nitpicks about the book, especially the one that sees DRAKON as a Draka fanfic, written by the author -- but none of them mattered, while I was reading or rereading the book. Drakon pushed all my buttons, and, since this isn't a formal review, I don't have to analyze the book, nyah nyah. It's *terrific*, and I look forward to rereading it again sometime in the 2020's.
-- edited from my 2004 review,
http://www.amazon.com/review/ROA74D33...
Gwen Ingolffson, the titular Drakon, is dumped alone into (almost) OTL in a failed wormhole experiment. A good Drakon superwoman, she makes First Contact by performing a mass-murder, and moves smoothly on towards World Domination. Gwen is SF's best female antihero, truly a lovely monster.
DRAKON is the only standalone Draka book, the sexiest, and the least gory, so if you haven't tried the Drakaverse, this is the place to start.
The ending is perfunctory (but includes a neat reference to Niven's "All the Myriad Ways"!), with a nice leadin to the planned sequel, "Unto Us a Child". Which, sadly, was never finished. Here's the story, as of some years ago: https://www.leighkimmel.com/reading/e... Pity.
There are various fannish nitpicks about the book, especially the one that sees DRAKON as a Draka fanfic, written by the author -- but none of them mattered, while I was reading or rereading the book. Drakon pushed all my buttons, and, since this isn't a formal review, I don't have to analyze the book, nyah nyah. It's *terrific*, and I look forward to rereading it again sometime in the 2020's.
-- edited from my 2004 review,
http://www.amazon.com/review/ROA74D33...
May 19, 2011
One of several books in Stirling’s alternate history series based on an empire based out of South Africa that takes over the world. This book is set in a time after the Draka have superior technology than what we currently have and one of them is accidently sent through a worm hole or something into ‘earth prime’, a world based more on actual history, where the Draka never developed. The lone Draka agent proceeds to attempt to conquer the world so she can muster the resources to contact her version of reality. I don’t actually thing Stirling is that great of a writer, but he does have a knack for getting me to read a book.
November 8, 2015
The final chapter of the Draka series. This one is mostly an science fiction/action novel. A female Draka makes to an alternative Earth which is a close copy of ours. Predictably she sets out to conqueror the entire planet. Luckily for us an enemy agent(free Humans having escaped to Alpha Centauri at the end of the third novel)follows her to our reality and sets about to foil her plot. It's fast moving, exciting and fun. However it lacks some of the depth of the earlier books. Not bad, but not as detailed and thought out. I still give it three stars, but don't expect as much sociological aspects as are present in the earlier books.
July 11, 2008
Humankind faces its greatest threat: domestication! I really enjoyed this racey tale of a time and dimension travelling villainess protagonist (of the uberspecies homo drakensis) and her attempts at world domination. This book has it all!
November 3, 2011
25th century Draka Gwen Ingolfsson passes through a molehole into a 1990's parallel Earth on a timeline similar to ours. While working to make the molehole more stable, she plans for a Draka takeover of this "new" Earth. Plenty of action.
January 22, 2008
This is creepy good stuff.
April 25, 2017
This whole series has a whole lot of problems, but it is still very interesting.
April 19, 2010
Reads far more like comic-antihero-sci-fi than anything from original trilogy. I quite enjoyed it, but please realize it's kind of fluff.
May 29, 2010
Liking it very much. Stirling never flinches or disappoints.
March 26, 2011
a completely different story from the first three but set in the same universe. This one is more of a spy thriller rather than military Sci fi but it is still quite good.
April 13, 2021
Not as good as the beginning of the series - but usually Stirling writes a good story, but he tends to take the storyline too far after it's over.
January 2, 2012
Hard to put down! Alpha ego and reinforced physique versus technology assisted spirit. Eerily similar to "Terminator"
August 6, 2016
The only bad thing I can say about this book is that there is not another one after it, and I so want to keep reading more!
November 25, 2013
I don't like where this book takes the *series*, but the book itself is a pretty good read. It seems the series is dead anyway.
August 6, 2014
Seems to have lost the urgency and grand sweeping scope of the previous books.
September 19, 2014
I wish Stirling would write more in this universe rather than the tripe he writes in the emberverse.
June 8, 2018
A fitting conclusion to an excellent series.
January 5, 2016
I never properly appreciated how goofy Stirling can be, but it's in a way I enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews