Siege Engines

by R. Vincent Tibbetts

The vessel Champollion was bathed in technology that was nothing short of state of the art. Its crew was handpicked to aid in the journey, the Empire trusted them implicitly to expand their spatial bounds -- until they went too far. A space opera that weaves in and out of repressed worlds and the controlling tentacles of the Empire, of fear and the fearless, and of one woman who must rise to the occasion and find a way to ‘put it on the strength’. The powerful have something to fear.

Genres: Science Fiction

215 pages, Paperback

First published December 5, 2016

About the author

R. Vincent Tibbetts was raised in Western Pennsylvania during the 1970's. It was a time when their professional football team captured the heart of a city. It was because of this that the surrounding areas immersed themselves in a culture of winning, however those feelings changed with the death of the steel industry. Witnessing the economic shock-wave ripple through these communities from the gutting of such an industrial expanse had an impact on his psyche. It led him to see his surroundings in a new light, he grew to have an appreciation for how things worked, the workings of the natural world, and developing a mindset for conservation.

His interests in art, photography, and film production brought him to California and a career in the entertainment business where he is a Chief Lighting Technician or Studio Electrician.

He is an entrepreneur at heart.
His hobbies include beach volleyball, golf, softball, hiking, camping, and surfing.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story never really grabbed me and held onto my attention. I expected the disjointed pieces to come together at some point into a cohesive storyline. However, it never did.
This definitely has facets to spin off some good stories: an interstellar Empire whose purpose is dubious and shrouded, nanobots, scientific creations out of control, conflicted citizens kept in the dark and galaxies of inhabited planets.
Much of the story felt pressed together from differing storylines and ended in a faltering declaration of overthrowing the bonds of servitude demanded by the Empire.
Language and content are suitable for readers of all ages, but even if the story were better, I feel the writing is better suited to older readers.

* I received a free copy of this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway *

[Miriam Smith (A Mother’s Musings)]

Won in the Goodreads Giveaways

[Kei Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've read some good science fiction, so I wanted to like Siege Engines. I really did want to like it. Tibbetts, I promise this is nothing personal.

Another review calls Siege Engines "disjointed", says that they were waiting for it to "come together", which it never did. This is a pretty good overview of the biggest problem I had with Siege Engines. Each section starts up with new characters and new things going on, delving right into the worldbuilding as if starting a new story entirely, and by the end of the section only rarely comes back into spitting range of the story as already established.

The worldbuilding is another huge problem. Quite simply, there's far too much of it. Huge chunks of the text -- easily the majority of it -- are dedicated to the fine details of politics, ecology, medicine, academy regulations, basically anything you can think of. There comes a point when it stops being useful information and becomes gratuitous infodumping.

This leads to another issue: for much of the book, there's just not a lot going on. When you run into fifteen pages of technobabble infodumping, there's not a lot of progress to be made. Dialogue is incredibly rare and sparse, and things really don't get moving until the last forty pages or so. The end result was that reading Siege Engines felt like a chore.

I wish I had kinder words to say about the technical aspects of the writing, but it could have done with a good editorial scrubbing. I counted exactly three semicolons in the entire book, of which two were used incorrectly; meanwhile every single page required at least one semicolon where there was none.

Ultimately, Siege Engines has a nugget of potential sitting at its core. Maybe with the worldbuilding trimmed down -- significantly trimmed down -- and the action brought to the forefront, it could make a solid short story. But unfortunately, science fiction without much action isn't much fun at all.

[I recieved this book via a Goodreads giveaway. I have not been compensated in any way for my feedback; let's be real, nobody would pay for this review.]

[Luisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

i won a copy of this book in the good reads giveaway, and sadly i could not get into this book at all, to be fair i am not a massive science fiction fan (i like to try new types of books now and then) so maybe that's why, i just personally found it a bit hard to follow and didn't really identify with any of the characters :(

[Bri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and interesting science fiction novel. I really enjoyed reading this, and would recommend it to fans of science fiction/space opera.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siege Engines was a very imaginative read, there were many changing aspects with the chapters switching between characters and time line. It was difficult to figure out when and where things were happening in some of the chapters at first. But by the end of the book you can discern what's what. There was a good amount of explanation with what was happening and why, but maybe too many changing characters and things that could be build onto more. It was left at a bit of a cliffhanger, what will become of the crew of the Pathfinder?

I received a free copy from the giveaways, thank you.

[Gabriel Dedeic · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a fascinating adventure in the exploration of the space and its galaxies. A story of the expansion of the Empire and conquering worlds as they go. A hand picked scientifically enhanced crew must be put to the test.

I recieved this book as a free giveaway from Good reads.
I recommend this book.

[Richard Whale · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting science fiction idea and well developed in the story. There is an undercurrent of tension in the book which I liked. But I thought the characters seemed a rather two dimensional and would have liked Rutherford and Bryer to have been given more depth. Both are pivotal to the action but neither is given any real character and neither seems to interact much with other characters. There are a lot of typo errors which rather detract from the story.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it. I had no idea what we were going and the journey was fascinating.