Empire's End (The X-Men)

Rating:
Summary: More about Xavier's sex life than I wanted to know
Review: First of all, let me just say Charles is not supposed to behave like a hormonal teenager. But that's exactly how he comes off in this book. A crisis hits, some new diffuculty in killing this Bug Eyed Monster of the Week, and Charles and Lilandra hop in the bed! Honestly, it got old after the first two chapters. Also, the writer completely forgot Charles IS Lilandra's acknowledged consort, according to the comics. An annoying error to be sure.

She wastes the other characters as well. Beast is only here for snappy one liners. Gambit (without Rogue - BORING!) has powers utterly unlike his in the comics. Even Scott and Jean come across as a generic couple. She could have used the exact same plot and just changed the names to Spock, Kirk and McCoy. I doubt we would have noticed a difference.

I was hoping these books would get better with more established writers. Looks like I still will have to hope.

Rating:
Summary: More about Xavier's sex life than I wanted to know
Review: First of all, let me just say Charles is not supposed to behave like a hormonal teenager. But that's exactly how he comes off in this book. A crisis hits, some new diffuculty in killing this Bug Eyed Monster of the Week, and Charles and Lilandra hop in the bed! Honestly, it got old after the first two chapters. Also, the writer completely forgot Charles IS Lilandra's acknowledged consort, according to the comics. An annoying error to be sure.

She wastes the other characters as well. Beast is only here for snappy one liners. Gambit (without Rogue - BORING!) has powers utterly unlike his in the comics. Even Scott and Jean come across as a generic couple. She could have used the exact same plot and just changed the names to Spock, Kirk and McCoy. I doubt we would have noticed a difference.

I was hoping these books would get better with more established writers. Looks like I still will have to hope.

Rating:
Summary: A True Waste of Time
Review: I can't believe I wasted my time reading this book. It was atrocious! The characters were reduced to 2 dimensional garbage. You knew what was coming chapters ahead. The author tries to draw out the dark temptations each character experiences but it was so bland, so cartoony, and very very unimaginative. She discards characters because their abilities just so happens not to fit in battle, how convenient. Ugh, I don't know why I even read it. I kept giving the author another chance with each chapter, and it was not worth it. Truly, stay away from this book.

Rating:
Summary: An OK read
Review: I mean that. She did outstanding work on the Spider-Man Novels, but this X-Men; Empire's End book kind of falls way short of expectations. I kept waiting for the really exciteing chapters to begin and they never took place. I think Diane would do great books on other Marvel Characters like the Fantastic Four or the Avengers, maybe Spidey again also. But not the X-Men. It just was not good.

Rating:
Summary: Not for those who fondly remember their youth...
Review: If you are looking to recapture your youth through X-Men novels, skip this one. You won't like the way this book treats its characters.

If you are looking for an afternoon read; occasionally enjoy a bubblegum-for-the-brain space story; are more interested in plot than characters; and most importantly, didn't put down good money for the book but got it from the library, you might like it.

That's worth two stars.

Rating:
Summary: it's not bad, but...
Review: Well, she made an effort. And she raised interesting issues, though she never really resolved them. But I think Diane Duane works better with a smaller cast. Her original novels are fine; they have much smaller casts. Her Spiderman trilogy is fine; it has only three main characters. Even her Star Trek novels are fine; she tends not to use more than five major characters per book. In "Empire's End," she's dealing with Professor X, Beast, Gambit, Wolverine, Storm, Bishop, Iceman, Cyclops, Jean, Lillandra, a Shi'ar lord, etc. There are simply too many characters, and though each gets a few scenes or "moments," they all seem shallow.

The plot is as follows: the Shi'ar discover that a mysterious creature, which destabilizes galaxies by eating their cores, is heading their way. They enlist the X-Men to stop the creature. This totally unequal confrontation is made "plausible" by a strange device that enhances the X-Men's powers. Gosh, how convenient. Meanwhile, Lillandra's council is pressuring her to marry a Shi'ar noble and produce an heir, instead of continuing her relationship with Charles. Ooh, look, a romantic subplot.

There are some interesting discussions about the effects of absolute power, and the enhancement of the X-Men's powers at the expense of the more human aspects of their personalities, but when they finally save the day (you never seriously thought they wouldn't, did you?) those issues vanish like mist, never fully confronted. The power-enhancing device also conveniently disappears; I sense an author avoiding the implications of a bad concept.

Also, I'd really like to know exactly what the huge, ghostly X-Men-shaped constructs are. They are first described as psychic projections, or something along those lines, but later seem to become real. They seem to be a device for avoiding the idiocy of pitting the X-Men against a creature larger than Manhattan. I say, if you're using the X-Men, give them an adversary they can confront as is. But if you lack the foresight to do that, the least you can do is remain honest to your original premise, and keep the relative sizes of the space creature and the X-Men as is. (Actually, the ghost figures aren't needed for the final victory, which makes me wonder even more why they were there in the first place. I sense more bad concepts.)

The story is fast and fun, and Duane's style is quite readable, but "Empire's End" feels like a rush job by an author not quite familiar with her world and characters, who tried to make up for the gap by shoving them into Star Trek.

Rating:
Summary: it's not bad, but...
Review: Well, she made an effort. And she raised interesting issues, though she never really resolved them. But I think Diane Duane works better with a smaller cast. Her original novels are fine; they have much smaller casts. Her Spiderman trilogy is fine; it has only three main characters. Even her Star Trek novels are fine; she tends not to use more than five major characters per book. In "Empire's End," she's dealing with Professor X, Beast, Gambit, Wolverine, Storm, Bishop, Iceman, Cyclops, Jean, Lillandra, a Shi'ar lord, etc. There are simply too many characters, and though each gets a few scenes or "moments," they all seem shallow.

The plot is as follows: the Shi'ar discover that a mysterious creature, which destabilizes galaxies by eating their cores, is heading their way. They enlist the X-Men to stop the creature. This totally unequal confrontation is made "plausible" by a strange device that enhances the X-Men's powers. Gosh, how convenient. Meanwhile, Lillandra's council is pressuring her to marry a Shi'ar noble and produce an heir, instead of continuing her relationship with Charles. Ooh, look, a romantic subplot.

There are some interesting discussions about the effects of absolute power, and the enhancement of the X-Men's powers at the expense of the more human aspects of their personalities, but when they finally save the day (you never seriously thought they wouldn't, did you?) those issues vanish like mist, never fully confronted. The power-enhancing device also conveniently disappears; I sense an author avoiding the implications of a bad concept.

Also, I'd really like to know exactly what the huge, ghostly X-Men-shaped constructs are. They are first described as psychic projections, or something along those lines, but later seem to become real. They seem to be a device for avoiding the idiocy of pitting the X-Men against a creature larger than Manhattan. I say, if you're using the X-Men, give them an adversary they can confront as is. But if you lack the foresight to do that, the least you can do is remain honest to your original premise, and keep the relative sizes of the space creature and the X-Men as is. (Actually, the ghost figures aren't needed for the final victory, which makes me wonder even more why they were there in the first place. I sense more bad concepts.)

The story is fast and fun, and Duane's style is quite readable, but "Empire's End" feels like a rush job by an author not quite familiar with her world and characters, who tried to make up for the gap by shoving them into Star Trek.