Excellent exploration, terrible storytelling…

If you’re continuing to read this series, then this is the Alwa Station book you must read.

The exploration elements regarding both the homeworld of the major antagonist and the newly discovered alien race are excellent, and they alone make this book worth your while to complete the story.

However Kris Longknife’s continued descent into the worst of her grandparents actions while her crew cheer her on continue. She kidnaps people, resulting in their suicide and is cheerfully forgiven. She bullies her way through all opposition with characteristic stubbornness and never seems to learn from her actions, merely angsts over them for perhaps a single night.

She fires upon merchant vessels explicitly not under her command, while declaring them to be so, then condemns their crew for wishing to leave the death trap they were tricked into - of course, she is vindicated by plot, as despite the previous utter unlikelihood of running into aliens, they and she do so, allowing her to condemn them as enemies of humanity.

I’m not really sure what the plot involving the commander who condemns her irrationally is intended to serve, other than to vindicate her actions - even as she plots to disobey the orders of her superiors.

The author essentially continues to utterly ruin the entire narrative premise of his previous novels, with a very-much non-threat from a supposedly mega-powerful alien race that loses at every turn it meets a Longknife providing the rationale behind his main characters ‘I’ll do what is needed and *you* can all suffer while I live happily, because hey, I go into harms way’ jingoistic militarism - I’m not sure if it’s intended this entire section be a bizarre parody of everything he previously setup, but I confess I’m getting slowly more tired of this series.

This is my second read through, and I recall really enjoying this book - and I have to admit, 80% of it is excellent. Sadly, I can’t praise it for 80% of the review, because the 20% makes me want to spit fire, as the main character becomes a dislikable person someone might oppose on principle in these sections.

The occasionally facile nature of the emotional and character growth in these books proves a benefit however, as you can simply skip these chapters and the story makes almost perfect sense without them,

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