Title: good, bad and ugly
Product review: The author is intellectually entertaining with the cultural background of this novel, if you like that sort of thing, and I do, but that was also the novel's downfall.As others have discussed here, the two human civilizations were separate because FTL ships couldn't be launched from brown dwarf stars, where the cycler humans live. Without revealing the ending, the author built a scaffold that supported the cycler civilization as "better" than the FTL civilization, then ...No, I can't say anymore, except that, in the end (to solve a plot problem he had painted himself into,) he tried to have it both ways, and I can't image human beings accepting his solution when another exists.All of the criticism from others about flat characters and "deus ex machina" solutions to problems, I agree with. Actually, the solution to the plot problem that I can't go into without revealing the ending is classic "deus ex machina."
Would you say this review depicts the product in a flattering or unflattering light?
