OK… I usually use the star system and move on. But, Michael Anderle is as out of control as his depiction of what is happening and inability to use simple storytelling. He continues to have no idea of how to write dialogue so that’s a reader knows who is speaking. Also, the gratuitous use of vulgar language is so amateurish that it makes me cringe. The salacious language is supposed to be pointed, but it is as if a child is speaking and does not want to get scolded for the use of vulgarity by his parents. The thing of it is, though, I am so deep into these mindless pieces of Science Fiction that I am virtually addicted to an attempt to find out how it ends. The buildup to the “fight“ with the king is anti-climactic. The empress just dispenses of her opponent through trickery, and there is little or no description of the fight scene. I will continue, I suppose, to use this mindless and amateur series to act as a parenthetical pause between reading real novels with well developed characters. By the way, I read an authors note , and learned that he had actually hired an editor. There are so many poorly constructed sentences, fragments, runons, and poor punctuation that I felt like a musician with perfect pitch at a middle school concert. They jump off the page and offend sensibilities. If I could change the rating above, I would.