Colonization: Aftershocks

Rating:
Summary: Godawful
Review: When Harry Turtledove is good (How Few Remain, Guns of the South, The Misplaced Legions series), he's very good. And when he's bad, he's terrible. And in this book, he's really, really bad. As the third and final book in his series that should have been called the Nothing Happens series, as you might guess, with one exception, pretty much nothing happens. Subplots are built up and never resolved. And things end pretty much were they started at the beginning of the first book, the race controls half the planet, the humans the other half. The entire 1500 pages of this series could have been told in one short 300 pages if Turtledove had omitted the unnecessary gratuitous sex scenes, endless repetitions of the same themes, and boring dialog and subplots that really don't go anywhere.
I have no idea why I read all the way through this series. I guess I enjoy pain.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting
Review: The latest installment of the wacky yet profound Worldwar/Colonization Saga. Having read all the books, I found great enjoyment in them, and in this one no less. Dr Turtledove is writing book #7 of The Race's attempt to conquer Tosev 3 (Earth) and he still manages to keep it green. He still managed to surprise me at every turn. I hope he will continue with this series. If you have not read any of these books, get all 7 of them and enjoy yourself. You will. If you've read only some of these, catch up, it's still the best!

Rating:
Summary: Eh...
Review: I absolutely loved Second Contact and Down to Earth. But in comparision Aftershocks was just disappointing. Turtledove should have spent more time mapping out his storylines. Some of them are so convoluted even he can't keep track of them--for instance, one character is arrested, then released, and then a few chapters later seems to be back in jail again for no apparent reason. What's up with that? But despite the shoddy editing, Aftershocks does have its moments. Straha's return to the Race...the premature invention of the Furby...the spats between Kassquit and Ttomalss...the resolution of the whole "who attacked the colonization fleet?" plot...the surprising revelation at the very end of the book. But these things are grossly outweighed by the fact that at the end of this book a lot of the plot lines remain unresolved. What happens to Gorpett, Rance Auerback, Straha, Kassquit, Johannes Drucker, Ttomalss, and Monique Dotourd? Their stories are just left hanging without any actual conclusions. In my opinion, the last book in a series should at least make an effort to tie things up.

Rating:
Summary: great book-is the saga truly over?
Review: This book is absolutely great along with the previous books in the series, even though it lacks the action present in the world war series. And best of all this books conclusion definitely leaves room for more book's to continue the saga.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been better
Review: This was supposed to be the "concluding" work in this series, but it really shouldn't be. There wasn't enough meat in this installment; very little actually happens, as opposed to several of the worldwar books. For those of you familiar with the rest of the series, many of the more interesting characters are already dead or are killed off in this book, and many of the more trite and tiresome ones get starring roles (please, Harry, drop a huge atom bomb on the Yeagers already). This book should have gone farther; the series really won't feel complete until the timeline passes ours and the Race's home planet becomes involved in the story. Hopefully, there will be one more book in this series, with a significantly faster pace - the idea behind the series will support it.

Rating:
Summary: Just filling the rest of the contract
Review: I think Turtledove bit off more than he could chew with this series. He has obviously stretched this out and the writing reflects that. Meanwhile, I see other titles appearing on the shelves. I think this project just got done in between things that were of greater interest. I feel a little ripped off.

Rating:
Summary: Boooooring!
Review: I really liked the series, but I think Harry has run out of steam (and ideas). I had to speed-read the last half of the book just to finish it, and shouldn't have bothered to even do that. Boring talk with characters that seem less real, and less interest in what becomes of them. This book was a real disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Many good points, should've been two books, not one
Review: As always with these books Turtledove has a lot of good ideas and concepts, I eagerly awaited this one. I was surprised to find a book with so many loose ends, bits and pieces that it needed to be two books not one. It makes me wonder if Mr. Turtledove wanted to end the series (I've heard that this is to be the last)in a hurry but had two books worth of material to get rid of.

Rating:
Summary: love this book and everything about the series
Review: There has been much criticism of this book and series from other Amazon.com reviewers. I must say I found this book as interesting and riveting as the other books in the series. I definitely hope there is a sequel coming, because this is such a fascinating world to lose yourself in.

Rating:
Summary: Miserable
Review: I've had it with Turtledove. One or two of these is more than enough. I originally bought him expecting something as subtle and engrossing as Moorcock's Nomad of the Time Streams, only to discover an endless working of obvious jokes, genre cliches and bad, bad, writing. There's more substance in The Warlord of the Air, the first Nomad book, than in the whole of Turtledove. This is the last one I even look at!