Heirs of Empire by Evan C. Currie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So I was reading this old-style fantasy adventure with the stalwart knight picking up an protecting the young children of the rightful king who had just been deposed right in his castle. After a few cool battles and gathering together all the outcasts that this female knight could find, they rally behind the idea of the children and the empire and take on the deposing military to reinstall the monarchy.

Have you heard this one before?

Yeah. Me, too.

I think SF is learning the wrong lessons from the recent popularity of Fantasy. We don't want the extremely tired STORIES of the old Fantasy regime. We want modern Fantasy's facile willingness to break all the rules and while enjoying awesome rule-based magic systems that harken to the days of old-tyme SF reliance on science-in-story.

So what happened? Did we run out of good tales to tell?

Oh, all right, this space-opera adventure did have it's good moments. The writing was comprehensible and very vivid in moments. A good deal of the high-tech was pretty damn awesome to see in action, just like a wonderful modern-fantasy magic battle, and I think I'll also say that I loved the trains a lot more than I originally did. That was some neat piece of juxtaposition for the novel.

I just wish the bare-bones of the story was more original. Hell, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd have welcomed some convoluted politics and treachery after a while, just to break up the monotony of fighting. I'm not a huge fan of MilSF. I tolerate it. This wasn't exactly bad, but it tires me out. I want meat to my stories, cleverness to the plot, depth to my characters. This novel was serviceable, but the only thing that really stood out was the tech and the glam.

If you're looking for tech and glam, then I'm sure you'll love this novel! :)

I'm not giving up on Currie, mind you. This is only my first shot at his work, and I promised that I'd dig into Homeworld and I will. I might just have to wait until I refill my batteries, first. :)

View all my reviews