Pro When a bunch of alien cats from outer space start blowing up cities without warning, prior plans may have to be altered. Be prepared to improvise.
Yosi Weismann had a simple Babysit a grossly irresponsible young man, who just happened to be a prince. Let His Excellency sow his wild oats. Don’t let him kill himself, or anyone else, in the process.
Piece of cake for a man of his skills. A glorified vacation. That's how things were supposed to go, at any rate.
Now Yosi is marooned on a foreign world, surrounded by people whom he doesn’t understand, hunted by enemies who literally want to eat him alive. But these are the least of his problems. Because the biggest war in living memory has set all of Known Space aflame in an instant. And if Yosi Weismann is to ever get back home, he first needs to build an army…
Mindless Pap Readers' Guild Contains alien cultures, foreign morals, complex characters, strange societies, complicated politics, total war, extensive realism, romantic romance, savage savagery, scientific science, an actual plot and a distinct lack of pre-chewed infodumps spoon fed by Captain Obvious. May challenge assumptions. Use of brain required. Proceed at own risk.
Yea, verily – it's grimdark future history. Night falls, the fires grow, millions die in the first fifty pages. And that's the nice, sweet, happy part of the story.
Satisfied? You'll either love it, or you'll hate it. Middle ground seems hard to come by. Now go read the preview already. What are you waiting for?
Moshe Ben-Or has lived a colorful life, one well suited to becoming a writer. Much of said life has involved that which is termed "adventure" in retrospect, but at the time mostly boils down to being stuck up crap creek without a paddle. None of the details matter, in the grand scheme of things.
If you like the book, follow the author. If you want to see a sequel to the book, give it a positive review. Tell your friends. Buy the next book when it comes out. Beyond that, you're welcome to guess at the details of the author's life from the stories he writes.
I received a free copy of this book to write an honest review. All opinions are my own and any kind of hate message is not acceptable.
I tried so hard to finish this book. I kept abandoning it and then picking it back up hoping it will get better. I will say that yes I did not read more than 15% of the book but let me tell you why.
The writing style was good and the idea of a modern world where everything is virtual seems cool. Although I was confused in the beginning as to why they spoke as if they were from the Medieval ages...
Now the characters were not strong at all. The world building was very weak. I needed maps and explanations about all the sciency/fantasy stuff I was being told about. When I was reading this book I was wondering if there was some kind of a handbook that I was supposed to read along with the book because there was a lot of new stuff that was left to assumptions.
The beginning was also very confusing and pointless. It had no useful information about the place they were in, called Paradise (we get to know more about the place after being like 10% into the book)
The alien invasion did not make me FEEL scared or make me feel like something bad was happening. The two protagonists were away from the site of invasion and maybe that was one reason why I felt so disconnected. There was no "turmoil" about being invaded by aliens. I get that Yoseph a.k.a Yosi is a paranoid man who is constantly preparing for something bad to happen (I have no idea why) but acting as if he could even handle an alien invasion? Come on!
Leonidas was a total jerk. Yoseph and Leo both treated women as trash and not only objectified them but also ridiculed them. NOT COOL! Where Yosephs character seemed to have random anger attacks, Leo would at one point objectify women and at another point he would go all crazy about saving a woman and carrying her around like a gentleman... what??
The treatment of women was a huge reason behind why I abandoned this book. Each woman that we were introduced to was described as either an airhead or a helpless target or a b***h. I mean, this book is set in the waaaay future, are you telling me that women will still be treated like crap?? I seriously hope not!
Another problem with this book was that it has a lot of pointless information and random useless back stories that literally had nothing to do with the plot on hand. I didn't even know what was happening half the time. They would start doing something and I was just left wondering why?? Why are they doing whatever it is that they are doing?
Maybe by the end the characters start treating women better, maybe everything is explained eventually, maybe the plot is super awesome by the end but I don't have the patience to stick around. I'm not saying that writing a book is easy but if the introduction was good and if women weren't treated the way they were, I would have definitely continued on.
If you like books about violent rape, you’ll love this series. If you like books about rampant pedophilia, you’ll love this series. If you like books that are filled with superfluous filler, you’ll love this series. In the series the author creates a religion where the followers worship a goddess. The adherents of this religion refer to Christianity’s central figure as “corpse on a stick” and “zombie” but never disparage Judaism’s central figure. The author fills pages and pages with one of the main characters going on and on ad nauseam about the goddess. The author is overly verbose throughout the series, which I didn’t finish, as though he’s being paid by the word. Somewhere is this series, buried within the rape, pedophilia, and unnecessary filler, is a pretty good book. There are space battles, land battles, special ops, cool science fiction stuff and likeable characters.
I don't give out 5 stars often... This book is brilliant on so many levels. Well crafted plot a la Peirs Anthony and Robert Heinlein with writing inspired by Neil Gaiman and some Terry Pratchett sprinkled on the edges. Timeline flashbacks courtesy of Quentin Tarantino.
I just put my kindle down and stared at the the wall for a minute to absorb the impact of the joke that was subtly being set up for the first 50% of the book in the midst of a well crafted universe wide alien invasion.
It was a little difficult parsing who was who in the first few chapters. Overall, it was a bit uneven in direction. Sometimes it was a huge story, sometimes it was small.
First novel I have read that used a Jew as the main character with all of the history it bring to the story. Very interesting. I had to look up a few Hebrew words to figure out what was being described, but it added to the tapestry.
I did like the world building and the plot remained true.
I purchased it after reading on KU. I checked out the next book immediately.
An example of a monarchy of a distant planet in the far future. The son of the ruling monarchy and his bodyguard enter the military of the Knights and Spartans in clothing from the past but the weapons used are of the future. The author does an outstanding mix of new and old. This is an excellent read for the genre.....DEHS
I had no idea what to expect from this book, but BOY! Did it deliver! It pulls no punches in it’s fighting scenes and gory details, but also has hope and romance intermingled with the main story Well done, I’m now starting book two