Star Brigade: First Renaissance, by C. C. Ekeke
Book Review by David A. Olson
Have you read this book?
Star Brigade: First Renaissance is space opera written enthusiastically by C. C. Ekeke. The story is about a race called Korvenites that had their own planet until humans came and pushed them onto reservations. The Korvenites then kill half of the population of earth. In retaliation, the Korvenites are taken to concentration camps or sold into slavery. But the Korvenites have a bold leader who promises to give them to freedom and their home back. Captain Habraum Nwosu, the main character, leads the Star Brigade and is forced to fight the Korvenites because of their terrorist methods.
This story sounds exciting, but sadly it doesn't work on many levels.
The first chapter is essentially a sequence of three prologues with the main story taking place eight years later. By the time the book got to the main story, I was bored with all the background that ended up not mattering very much.
The book weighs in at 518 pages, which normally is a good thing. However, if the author doesn't know when to stop it can be quite painful. I found myself skimming much of this book because everything happened so slowly and the plot barely progressed from chapter to chapter. And when it did progress, it was usually predictable.
I had a hard time taking the combat in this book seriously. For example, the hero is able to shoot people who are standing behind him without looking. Later, in a training mission to rescue hostages, they attack the installation in force. For some reason they don't think that the hostages will be killed at this point. When one of the Star Brigade rushes inside to save the hostages, that was supposed to be a bad thing because then the hostages would have died. It simply didn't make any sense.
Some of the reading of the book I found to be quite humorous, but others may like. The starts with a three-page glossary of terms for such things as a macrom, which is 66 seconds. If you're a like that on the old Battlestar Galactica they could never say days and months but had to use made up terms, you'll enjoy this feature of the book.
The villains in this story were the most likeable. Maelstrom, the leader of the Korvenite resistance, is an obsessed person with real goals and the will to achieve them. I wouldn't want to be him, but he had the panache and style of Darth Vader. The other characters felt shallow and cliche, especially the good guys.
All in all, I think this book is a good idea done badly.
This story sounds exciting, but sadly it doesn't work on many levels.
The first chapter is essentially a sequence of three prologues with the main story taking place eight years later. By the time the book got to the main story, I was bored with all the background that ended up not mattering very much.
The book weighs in at 518 pages, which normally is a good thing. However, if the author doesn't know when to stop it can be quite painful. I found myself skimming much of this book because everything happened so slowly and the plot barely progressed from chapter to chapter. And when it did progress, it was usually predictable.
I had a hard time taking the combat in this book seriously. For example, the hero is able to shoot people who are standing behind him without looking. Later, in a training mission to rescue hostages, they attack the installation in force. For some reason they don't think that the hostages will be killed at this point. When one of the Star Brigade rushes inside to save the hostages, that was supposed to be a bad thing because then the hostages would have died. It simply didn't make any sense.
Some of the reading of the book I found to be quite humorous, but others may like. The starts with a three-page glossary of terms for such things as a macrom, which is 66 seconds. If you're a like that on the old Battlestar Galactica they could never say days and months but had to use made up terms, you'll enjoy this feature of the book.
The villains in this story were the most likeable. Maelstrom, the leader of the Korvenite resistance, is an obsessed person with real goals and the will to achieve them. I wouldn't want to be him, but he had the panache and style of Darth Vader. The other characters felt shallow and cliche, especially the good guys.
All in all, I think this book is a good idea done badly.
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