3 out of 50...

One of Adj’s friends on LJ peppermenthe is a member of 50 Book Challenge… where people try to read 50 books in a year.

While I am not taking up the gauntlet per say- I do think it’s a good way to share the good books that I read with y’all… esp. as there have been times where I’ve felt that I’ve wanted to write reviews but never have. I think that’s because I have a stack mentally of stuff I mean to blog but end up not blogging because I either get distracted by shiny stuff( like the 360) or I end up blogging about something more current- i.e. more likely to blog about stuff that pissed me off today then what I saw on t.v. last week.
Also I figure now that I can tag on blogger- this will make book reviews easier for me.

So- as the title implies I’ve thus far read 3 books this year- the Dread Empire’s Fall by Walter Jon Williams. The trilogy, in order- is The Praxis (the name of the Empire), The Sundering, and Conventions of War.
The trilogy is HIGH science fiction at it’s finest. Dread Empire’s Fall is does not have any social or political message- it’s about a man (Martinez) and a woman (Sula; who I kept calling Sulu to a friend) trying to find love during a galactic war.
The set up at first reminded me of William’s Crown Jewels series- where Earth was conquered ages before the novel starts and Earthers have melted into their conqueror’s society, however Crown Jewels was a funny piece- think Pink Panther in Outer Space, while Dread Empire’s Fall is as said a romance with wonderful space battle scenes.
Oh and the battles. Epic battles. Williams throws in wonderfully looking science enhanced battles. The ships do NOT do FTL (getting from various systems requires worm holes) and it takes them hours (pulling high gees) to get around star systems. In fact I sort of liked how one ship could fire on a second ship and the second ship could have hours to react- between seeing the first ship fire their rockets and the rockets being close enough to the second ship for ship #2 to fire their rockets to blow up ship #1’s rockets.
Both a friend of mine( who read the first two books) and I preferred Sula to Martinez but I think that’s because she was made a more interesting character and ends up having more to do in the third book… as they were separated and she ends up…. Well I can’t tell you that.
The Empire was started by the Shaa, who were a race of near immortals- they lived as long as they wanted and at the beginning of the first book the last Shaa decides to let itself die. The Shaa ruled their Empire Praxis pretty hard. There had been no real space battles as the Shaa preferred to bomb the other races into submission. All the other races (I think 4 including humans) were equal but below the Shaa. So after the last of the Shaa die- the Naxids decide that they will be the top dogs (they have a pack mentality)… and only our heroes can stop them.

That’s where it really gets interesting because the society of the Praxis is a basic feudal society… You have the Peers as a royalty and then you have everyone else. Each race has it’s own Peers, but you are BORN a peer. Thus one is more likely to become captain of a star ship because of who one knows then on actual merit. So one of the problems that Sula and Martinez have to overcome is that they have SEVERAL good ideas on how to win the war… and their superiors feel that one idea per person is enough; especially as Martinez comes from a backwater planet( so all Peers are equal but some are MORE equal) and Sulu... well...
Their love also has problems because Sula has a secret about her past. You find out about it early in the first book- but it casts a long shadow on how she acts, and again I feel it makes her more interesting then Martinez.

I highly recommend this trilogy to anyone who likes good sci fi and good space battles.