Rating: 
Summary: One word... WOW!
Review: What a book! I already owned books 4-6 in the series and thought I'd pick these up. (I know, I'm going about it wrong side up.) The final chapter in book 3 is a real gut-wrencher, especially if you're rooting for Roy. Have the Kleenex Handy (Side note: The next 3-book series has the climactic endgame battle between the humans and Zentraedi - another must read!) Jack McKinney is a genius in his own time.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: What can say, I loved these books. I have been a huge fan of Robotech since seeing the television series. The Zentraedi were always my favourites and they are by no means sidelined in the novels. Throughout the Robotech series you learn more about the alien's culture and history which makes for facinating reading. All the aspects which made the series great are in the novels and then some. Facinating sci-fi and moral cocepts are also explored; for example: the ethics of cloning, the morality of slavery and the fruits of repression and rule by fear etc. I recommend all the novels in the series but most especially First Generation 1-6, the Sentinels 1-5 and The End of the Circle. Fans of the Zentraedi character Breetai will enjoy the sentinels as the character is developed more. If you love action and aliens then place the Robotech series on your wish list.
Rating:
Summary: The TV show is good but the book is better.
Review: When I read Robotech:Genesis it was the best sf book that I had ever read.It even surpassed the Dune books in my point of view.I've always been a Macross (Japanese Robotech) fan but the book gave me a whole new perspective about what I read.
Rating: 
Summary: They were better when I was 12
Review: When this series first came out in 1987, I was already a huge Robotech fan. I watched faithfully, had lots of the toys, and even joined the official fan club. At that time, I found these novels so compelling that I would read surreptitiously by my night-light after bedtime.13 years later I returned to this series in a fit of nostalgia, but somehow it's not quite the same. Or maybe it's like Holden Caulfield said about the Museum of Natural History: it stays the same, but you change. Either way, the older me can't get over flaws that would never have even crossed the mind of my younger counterpart. For one thing, the authors are constrained by the terrible dubbed dialogue from the cartoon series, which is at times painful to read. Such dialogue is forgivable in a children's cartoon (and Robotech was marketed and dubbed as such, even if the original Japanese anime was not), but it's much more out of place in a self-respecting novel. That's not even the worst of it. A far worse constraint is the flagrant violations of the laws of physics and of common sense that occur in the cartoon. Again, such quirkiness is almost de rigueur in the genre of dubbed anime, but unforgivable in novels that hope to be taken seriously. The authors are constantly apologizing for all the inexplicable and silly things that happen in the cartoon, like how the SDF-1 can "fall" into the "frozen" Macross island out in deep space or how Captain Gloval's bridge staff incessantly question his orders (that is, when they're not too busy gossiping about their personal lives). Luckily, the authors cooked up a convenient out: any time something strange happens, something that violates the laws of physics or otherwise doesn't make sense, they can chalk it up to Protoculture's mysterious ways. And am I the only person who was disappointed to find out that "Jack MicKinney" is actually a composite of (at least) two different people? I would have had much more respect for the novels had they been researched and written by a single person, but somehow knowing that they were written by committee leaves me feeling betrayed and seems to magnify all their flaws. This is not to deny the novel's virtues. The killer app for these novels, then and now, is enriching the Robotech universe and fleshing out the story. We don't buy the novels to find out whether Roy Fokker dies; the devoted fans already know the plot by heart. No, we buy these novels because we want back-stories and plot enrichment. In this area, the novels don't disappoint. Perhaps the best examples of this are the quotations that precede every chapter. These excerpts from various faux sources are extremely well done; there are a variety of different sources ranging from feminist histories of the Robotech wars to Minmei's diary, and they're all written in the style of the purported author. Even now, I look forward to ending a chapter just so that I can read the prologue to the next one. The invented back-stories are fascinating too; for instance it's quite impressive that the authors were able to invent an entire character (T.R. Edwards) and make him an integral part of the plot, even though he never once appears in any of the three Robotech series. It just proves that the authors can write a riveting story with quality dialogue when not constrained by faithfulness to the cartoon (though even when they are so constrained it's somewhat entertaining to see just what contorted contrivance they'll conjure up as justification). With the reprinting and cheap anthologizing of these novels, the real question for interested parties is not the price but rather the opportunity cost of the time commitment. These novels do have something to offer for fans of the Robotech universe, but it may be that the amount of leisure time that needs to be invested to reap these rewards could be better spent elsewhere... like watching the tapes, for those lucky enough to have access.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: WOW, I can't believe no one has written a review of this book! Has anyone read it? This is my favorite series of all time! If you like Japanese animation, this is a must! Jack McKinney does an incredible job of bringing these characters to life. Read this book and I guarantee you won't stop until you've read every book in the series!
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