Chaos Child

Rating:
Summary: and so it ends.
Review: After this series started out with the excellent Draco and then onto the above average Harlequin, Chaos Child is very disappointing. Nothing in this book was extraordinary, the plot, the characters, nothing. There are interesting things that do happen but they're barely covered while relatively mundane events receive top notch coverage. All of the subplots, the intrigue, everything is abandoned except Jaq's personal quest. Half of the time this book seems to be rushing to finish and then it feels like it's dragging it's feet just to extend the book. Horrible job, the only reason this gets 3 stars is because it finished Jaq Draco's story.

Rating:
Summary: and so it ends.
Review: After this series started out with the excellent Draco and then onto the above average Harlequin, Chaos Child is very disappointing. Nothing in this book was extraordinary, the plot, the characters, nothing. There are interesting things that do happen but they're barely covered while relatively mundane events receive top notch coverage. All of the subplots, the intrigue, everything is abandoned except Jaq's personal quest. Half of the time this book seems to be rushing to finish and then it feels like it's dragging it's feet just to extend the book. Horrible job, the only reason this gets 3 stars is because it finished Jaq Draco's story.

Rating:
Summary: A genre altering Travesty.
Review: As a reader & gamer of Warhammer 40K, I found this book to be an insult.

This author quite obviously DID NOT do any research into the volumes of information about the Warhammer universe before writing this book.

This author was allowed to devalue, alter, and recast MAJOR elements of the Warhammer world.

And the Warhammer universe is way bigger than just one novel, yet in that novel the author broke any and all internal consistency in the Warhammer universe as a whole. The author (and his editor) obviously did not take into consideration that their story was contradicting reams of codex literature, backgroud meta-plot, and other Warhammer 40K novels.

Not only did the author demostrate a lack of respect for the continuity of the genre as a whole, his own story was so full of plot holes and go-nowhere subplots that the book ended up being a stream of consiousness that meandered to an end that noone but the author seems to get. And its not that the ending was "above" we poor readers, it was just BAD.

Read Dan Abnett or Ben Counter, those guys can write and keep continuity, because its the continuity that makes the Black Library Series so cool.

Rating:
Summary: Chaos Child was loathesome and vile!
Review: Boy was I suprised to find out how horrible this book was, especially after how good the first two in the series were. The impression that I had was that Mr. Watson grew board of writing this book and just gave up. This book leaves the reader with more loose ends than a cheap afghan, and its characters devolve to cardboard simpletons, however I lack the superlatives to to describe how poor the ending was. My advise read the first and second books .....then STOP.

Rating:
Summary: Do not read
Review: I have never before submitted a review of any product on the internet, but I have just finished reading "Chaos Child" by Ian Watson and feel so cheated that I HAVE to warn others not to read it. "Draco" (the first in the trilogy) is a brilliant novel, and is testament to Watson's abilities as a writer; his prose coupled with a dark, gothic and compelling plot serves to make it very difficult indeed to put it down. Excellent. "Harlequin", the sequel, is not so good, but the fact that you desperately want to find out how the plot will develop means it is passable. However, you do get the feeling that Watson has spent too long delving into a thesaurus to find new words to confuse his readers, rather than concentrating on writing his novel. (I spent a great deal of my time clawing through a dictionary, even though I have a degree in English.) Anyway, "Harlequin" is okay, although I have to be honest I can't really remember what happened in it, and I only finished it last week. "Chaos Child", however, is a completely different case. From the outset you realise that something has changed. It's in the style of writing: gone are the difficult words and the complexity of the characters, and in their stead we have simplistic dialogue, cardboard cut-outs, and rushed events. It strikes me that Watson might have had a checklist off Games Workshop or whoever commissioned him that he had to include as many typical traits of the Warhammer universe in his novel as possible. So we have brief (and I mean brief) encounters with genestealers, tyranids, titans, commissars, eldar, etc etc, all of which deserve chapters (or even complete novels) in themselves instead of, in some cases, sharing the same page! The second half of the novel quickly descends into a 'who's who' and 'what's what' of the Warhammer 40k universe, whilst the first drags with no plot whatsoever, with the characters being stranded on a planet for no apparent purpose. The whole thing is a mess stylistically and ideologically. The intriguing questions raised in "Draco" remain completely unanswered. Instead of trying to save the universe, Draco goes planet-hopping in search of his girlfriend. And all this with a handful of silly characters in tow: a gruff dwarf who is also rather sentimental (aw, bless him), a Space Marine who keeps praying to his patriarch Rogan Josh (oops I'm sorry, Rogal Dorn), and a weak female character who's only role is to cry and exclaim how unfair life is. Oh, I give up. I can't even be bothered to complain about this rubbish anymore. My best advice is to certainly read "Draco" and then to abandon this trilogy. "Harlequin" isn't really worth reading, but if you're curious I suppose it's okay. But there really is no point in reading "Chaos Child" because it literally has nothing to do with its predecessors! A huge disappointment. Perhaps Spielberg's fat wallet took Watson's attention away from completing his trilogy. "A.I" certainly is better than this load of tosh.

Rating:
Summary: Do not read
Review: I have never before submitted a review of any product on the internet, but I have just finished reading "Chaos Child" by Ian Watson and feel so cheated that I HAVE to warn others not to read it. "Draco" (the first in the trilogy) is a brilliant novel, and is testament to Watson's abilities as a writer; his prose coupled with a dark, gothic and compelling plot serves to make it very difficult indeed to put it down. Excellent. "Harlequin", the sequel, is not so good, but the fact that you desperately want to find out how the plot will develop means it is passable. However, you do get the feeling that Watson has spent too long delving into a thesaurus to find new words to confuse his readers, rather than concentrating on writing his novel. (I spent a great deal of my time clawing through a dictionary, even though I have a degree in English.) Anyway, "Harlequin" is okay, although I have to be honest I can't really remember what happened in it, and I only finished it last week. "Chaos Child", however, is a completely different case. From the outset you realise that something has changed. It's in the style of writing: gone are the difficult words and the complexity of the characters, and in their stead we have simplistic dialogue, cardboard cut-outs, and rushed events. It strikes me that Watson might have had a checklist off Games Workshop or whoever commissioned him that he had to include as many typical traits of the Warhammer universe in his novel as possible. So we have brief (and I mean brief) encounters with genestealers, tyranids, titans, commissars, eldar, etc etc, all of which deserve chapters (or even complete novels) in themselves instead of, in some cases, sharing the same page! The second half of the novel quickly descends into a 'who's who' and 'what's what' of the Warhammer 40k universe, whilst the first drags with no plot whatsoever, with the characters being stranded on a planet for no apparent purpose. The whole thing is a mess stylistically and ideologically. The intriguing questions raised in "Draco" remain completely unanswered. Instead of trying to save the universe, Draco goes planet-hopping in search of his girlfriend. And all this with a handful of silly characters in tow: a gruff dwarf who is also rather sentimental (aw, bless him), a Space Marine who keeps praying to his patriarch Rogan Josh (oops I'm sorry, Rogal Dorn), and a weak female character who's only role is to cry and exclaim how unfair life is. Oh, I give up. I can't even be bothered to complain about this rubbish anymore. My best advice is to certainly read "Draco" and then to abandon this trilogy. "Harlequin" isn't really worth reading, but if you're curious I suppose it's okay. But there really is no point in reading "Chaos Child" because it literally has nothing to do with its predecessors! A huge disappointment. Perhaps Spielberg's fat wallet took Watson's attention away from completing his trilogy. "A.I" certainly is better than this load of tosh.

Rating:
Summary: Do not bother wasting your money
Review: I will keep it short and very un-sweet. The first book in this trilogy is awesome. The second book was so-so and naturally I thought the final book of the trilogy would boost the worthiness of reading the second book. I got to a point when reading this book that I just wanted to discard it and move onto something better. I do not expect spectacular dialogue or likeable characters from the Warhammer universe because it is a very dark and depressing atmosphere. This book made Watsons work with that horrible A.I. flick seem genius. My greatest problem with the book is that none of the storylines from the trilogy come to a conclusion. I am not going to put up spoilers.

My suggestion is to read Jaq Draco(First book) and be happy with how that one ends and forget the other two were ever made.

Rating:
Summary: What happened.
Review: Let me sum up my feelings.

Draco, 4 Stars
Chaos Child, WTF, no way this book deserves any consideration.

I have never posted any review. I was so thoroughly disappointed in this book it makes me somewhat tenative to purchase another 40K book ..... Like Draco I need to be illuminated, I geuss I will just have to read the Eisenhorn Trilogy again.

Rating:
Summary: Makes a good sleep aid
Review: This book has put me to sleep every time I had picked it up and tried to read it. There was hardly any action in the book it seem like the author just ran out of good ideas and started to stretch out the plot of the book.

Rating:
Summary: The plot got lost somewhere in the webway.
Review: Watson's prose is its usual gimmicky, convoluted narrative. If his aim was to make the reader wallow in self-obsessed grief along with the main character, he does manage to hit the mark. This book shouldn't have been written. It goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing. It provides no furtherance of the plot established in the original two books. Read the Abnett "Eisenhorn" series instead.