There’s a lot to like about this franchise. The premise is one of the more exciting I’ve read in a while, namely, the idea that vastly superior alien civilizations, which are god-like in their sophistication relative to us, might be moving humans and other alien races around on a cosmic chessboard of near infinite proportions with a hidden agenda only they can divine. In fact, it’s a premise I utilize in my series, The Hundred Year Clones. So, no surprise, I was looking forward to seeing what an...

What were very intriguing premises in the first book get lost in flat characters and their foibles. Whether the characters were there or not make very little difference in whether the plot would have unfolded as described.

The Engines of Light is comprised of 3 books.I must admit that it didn't sound too much fun at the beginning and it's a little confusing when you start reading the first book, but it quickly becomes interesting. In every book there's a clash between different social ideas, individualistic vs colectivistic societies.The story is well told and and the plot isn't easy to predict. I liked the way it simulates societies that have lived centuries with a particular thought on life and the way they deve...

So, sequels. This follows quite directly from the first book in the series, and doesn`t really stand on its own too well. That said, it`s a pretty good follow up. The homemade starship that closes the first book arrives at its destination, interpersonal plotlines that weren`t particularly compelling from the first book are closed off quickly and efficiently and we get to meet another new world in the Second Sphere, a distant volume of space filled with tiers of beings from the space god bacteria...

Knocking off 2 stars because frankly the fact that he kept just straight up mocking the otherwise really interesting gender stuff of the Sky People was absurdly annoying. Haha, we get it, Stone "isn't a woman," keep driving that point home and never interrogating why, you chucklefucks. It'd be one thing if it was assholes like Volkov saying that and getting taken to task for it but ALL the characters do it, and are never questioned on it, which makes it clear that it's more the author's position...

2nd book in series. Maybe I'd have appreciated it more if I remembered the first book better. Premise: A galaxy where some races manage to become space-faring, but there is a more powerful race which manipulates the space-faring races (including wars between them) so none of the space-farers advance too far. However, the book is mostly about the repercussions of the first trader starship run by humans to arrive at a planet with several human societies at different tech levels, conflicts between

I thought this book would cut straight to the chase and we'd learn more about the Galaxy-spanning war of the gods. Instead it gets massively bogged down in the politics of yet another pre-industrial Second Sphere world, and tries a little too hard to be a satire on the futility and inevitability of revolution. The "heathen" society is a really fun thought experiment, but I suspect it doesn't hang together if you really think about it. Picks up a little toward the end, but generally plods along w...

Storyline: 2/5Characters: 2/5Writing Style: 2/5World: 2/5Ever heard a band's early version of a song? Before they signed with a label and the producer (or whoever it is that does these things) help them clean it up? The difference can be shocking. The cleaned-up version keeps the distinctiveness of the band or the song, but it finds the right place for all the instruments, adjusts the timing, weeds out the distracting elements, and produces a final product that resounds with professionalism. Whe...

the characters are kind of thin, I don't really know what's going, but I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Same problem with the first book, so very little actually happens. The exciting premise mentioned on the back cover, occurs midway through the book and then is dismissed for more exciting talk of communism, socialism and revolutionaries! Dull, and not nearly enough of an emphasis on 'science fiction'

Not gonna lie, this one was a chore to read, and I nearly chucked it in less than halfway through the book.The main storyline, such as it is, is somewhat engaging. This volume delves a little deeper into the 'gods' lifing various species from Earth at various epochs, and the possible ramifications of this. Chasing this story are characters from the first volume, 2 of which seemingly inexplicably disappear from the majority of the story (or if it was explained, I missed it), leaving us with some

This seemed familiar. Checking my notes, I found I'd read it before. That tells you how much it stuck with me. In a word: Disappointing. There are some interesting ideas here, especially the meanings of "man" and "woman," and the probable culture clash that's building. But they soon bog down in the uninteresting lead characters, the high-school-level politics, the weak and implausible plot developments, and more. Lydia swoons like a Jane Austen sidekick whenever she sees Volkov, despite abundan...

Better than the previous novel, but very uneven. The shifting perspectives in the last novel was annoying and in this one, the use of the present tense format is often irritating. I stick with this series simply because it is an interesting concept. The last chapter was really the worst of it all, which is unfortunate: highly descriptive with a clear attempt to build to a climax but with a weak payoff. I've found that the attempt to combine the political aspects and the more science fictional el...

I especially loved when gender stereotypes were broken. In one of the societies the books follow, someone is a child or a woman until they pass the test and become a man, which is defined as communing with the gods and hunting. So a young, skilled man remains a woman because he won't take the test, and some women act as men and are called men -- and this is reflected in the sexual situations in the book too. Another thing I didn't care for was the shifting tense parts of the book were written in...

good story, ending is too abrupt... give it 3.5/5....

2.5 stars. At the end of the previous book, one story line had been resolved and the other was ready to take off. This second book focuses on a small step in that story line - as characters zip off to another world at light speed. The scope of the book is pretty small, covering a few months on one planet. Unfortunately, I didn't find it to be a particularly interesting few months. There are a few reveals we can expect to be important in the next book, but most of the book is spent on a personal

I skipped a bunch of pages but I'm sure they would not have rescued this disaster.Characters are shallow and not well developed but rather just thrown into the mix.Plot line is confusing and made no sense.As this is book two in the series it appeared that you had to read book one to understand what was going on as it was not revealed in this book two.Unfortunately this is not how to write a series of books. Each book must be able to stand on it's own without the reader having to go back to previ...

This is the second book in the "Engines of Light" series. In this Gregor Carnes and his group o0f associates have finally cracked the problem of Faster-Than Light travel and they travel in their ship the "Bright Star" to the planet Croatan. They immediately contact the trader family from Cosmonaut Keep who have arrived weeks earlier in a Kraken ship. Their ship is impounded by the Port Authority. Gregor Carnes and Elizabeth who are the main characters in Cosmonaut Keep only have small parts in t...

‘The Second Sphere was founded by gods and populated with a host of kidnapped alien races. For Matt Cairns and the cosmonauts of the Bright Star it is their new home, but their unexpected arrival may trigger disaster. For, hidden among the stars, the gods still watch over their creation… and they do not tolerate dissent.’Blurb from the 2002 Orbit paperback editionMacleod’s rather disjointed sequel to ‘Cosmonaut Keep’ suffers mainly from having no clear structure and rambles a little through a na...

So so science fiction. This is second book in a series, I haven't read the first and wish I had as it's necessary to understand the background. I wish the author had kept off politics. Even though he's a Scot, he doesn't seem to understand the difference between communism and socialism.