Resurgence

Rating:
Summary: Best of the Heritage Universe Series
Review: In the fifth novel of the Heritage Universe, the Builders, those aliens who scattered around huge, occasionally useful, sometimes deadly, artifacts about our part of the galaxy, have competition. Another force is destroying their work and sucking the heat and life out of entire solar systems.

Troubleshooter Hans Rebka, obsessed Builder scholar Darya Lang, the shady team of Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial, their strangely loyal slaves, the exuberant and impatient E. C. Tally (an embodied computer), and Ethical Counselor Julian Graves again find themselves exploring the Builders' works and speculating as to what they mean.

This may be the most humorous book of the series, and the characters are at their most interesting. The action set pieces in frozen solar systems are inventive and suspenseful.

This is not a good entry point for the series, though. You'll want to follow the enigma of the Builders from the beginning starting with Sheffield's _Convergent Series_ and then _Transvergence_.

And, unfortunately, with Sheffield's death last year, some Builder questions will remain unanswered.

Rating:
Summary: Best of the Heritage Universe Series
Review: In the fifth novel of the Heritage Universe, the Builders, those aliens who scattered around huge, occasionally useful, sometimes deadly, artifacts about our part of the galaxy, have competition. Another force is destroying their work and sucking the heat and life out of entire solar systems.

Troubleshooter Hans Rebka, obsessed Builder scholar Darya Lang, the shady team of Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial, their strangely loyal slaves, the exuberant and impatient E. C. Tally (an embodied computer), and Ethical Counselor Julian Graves again find themselves exploring the Builders' works and speculating as to what they mean.

This may be the most humorous book of the series, and the characters are at their most interesting. The action set pieces in frozen solar systems are inventive and suspenseful.

This is not a good entry point for the series, though. You'll want to follow the enigma of the Builders from the beginning starting with Sheffield's _Convergent Series_ and then _Transvergence_.

And, unfortunately, with Sheffield's death last year, some Builder questions will remain unanswered.

Rating:
Summary: Charles Sheffield's Resurgence Ending
Review: This book was published in 2003, and Charles Sheffield died in 2002... The book was going great then the ending (last hundred or so pages) didn't add up... I really believe someone else wrote the ending to this book... Someone who didn't know the characters of Hans Rebka & Darya Lang at all...

Point: Hans Rebka gets out of jail and just barely escapes a death sentence and then shows no sexual interest in Darya Lang when he sees her? In fact, he ignores her for 100's pages and makes no attempt to rekindle their relationship (he alludes that he has plans about her, but they drop from existence)... Not exactly behaving like a man from the Phemus Circle & Teufel who has just escaped death now is he...

Point: Darya Lang who prides herself on being an intellectual at the end of the book stoops so low as to use her body to get what she wants instead of her brains & logic... Sorry whoever wrote the ending only Glenna Omar would have done that... Never, never in a million years would Darya Lang think about sleeping her way to anything. Not with Louis (even though she is strangly attracted to him), certainly not Julian Graves, or anyone. But she would want to find out what happened between her & Hans...

And as great as the survival team specialist were, there is no way any of them knows a darn thing about The Builders and Darya wouldn't have to beg to be a part of the expedition to the Sagittarius Arm... She would be a required part of the team... That is logical, and Julian Graves knows logic...

Why the person who wrote the ending of this book would want to dismiss Hans Rebka is also beyond me (unless the person who wrote the ending is looking for a spin off series)... However, they got Louis right, and his band of aliens pretty well fleshed out...

CS knows his characters, he wouldn't have made these mistakes...

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, But That's As Far As It Goes
Review: This was a mildly entertaining book. Sheffield places the action at an indeterminate time in the future at the interstellar level, with travel between our Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Sagittarius arm. He's big on aliens (although he doesn't go overboard) and on robotics. He does not show his strength in science in this novel.

The action centers on an ancient, largely unknown super race called the Builders that left a large number of enigmatic artifacts through the Orion arm. These artifacts date back some two million years. The Builders themselves have never been encountered, and are theorized to be either extinct or to have moved on to some other destiny. A scratch, motley team of somewhat disconnected characters is pulled together following the arrival of a ship from the Sagittarius arm. The ship contained two kinds of aliens, all of whom were dead. The team is asked to go to the Sagittarius arm to discover the aliens' purpose. There they find a huge, and growing, dead zone that stems either from the Builders or yet another super race.

The action is good, and the story flows. There was nothing that leapt out at me begging my interest other than just the general unfolding of events. It was fun to read, but will not leave much of a mark - certainly not like some of Sheffield's other books. Three stars, and that's being generous.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, But That's As Far As It Goes
Review: This was a mildly entertaining book. Sheffield places the action at an indeterminate time in the future at the interstellar level, with travel between our Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Sagittarius arm. He's big on aliens (although he doesn't go overboard) and on robotics. He does not show his strength in science in this novel.

The action centers on an ancient, largely unknown super race called the Builders that left a large number of enigmatic artifacts through the Orion arm. These artifacts date back some two million years. The Builders themselves have never been encountered, and are theorized to be either extinct or to have moved on to some other destiny. A scratch, motley team of somewhat disconnected characters is pulled together following the arrival of a ship from the Sagittarius arm. The ship contained two kinds of aliens, all of whom were dead. The team is asked to go to the Sagittarius arm to discover the aliens' purpose. There they find a huge, and growing, dead zone that stems either from the Builders or yet another super race.

The action is good, and the story flows. There was nothing that leapt out at me begging my interest other than just the general unfolding of events. It was fun to read, but will not leave much of a mark - certainly not like some of Sheffield's other books. Three stars, and that's being generous.