Rating: 
Summary: Very pleasurable and fast read
Review: I found Helm to be as fun a read os Jumper. Gould seems to have a great talent for coming up with interesting ideas, or spins on old ones, and building a real page-turner around the idea. While I won't say that he's at the peak of his career, Gould definitely shows he's a talent to be watched.I generally have 3 categories of books: 1. Buy this book 2. Borrow this book from the library/a friend 3. Forget about it. I'd easily put this in the first category. This is a book I really enjoyed and would have no qualms recommending to anyone else.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, casual read
Review: I found the book easy to follow (although a map would have been nice). The characters are great. The setting is basically midieval with some sci-fi thrown in. The story never lags or slows down and ends in a satisfying way. If you enjoyed Card's Homecoming series then you will probably like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Where was his editor?
Review: I'm afraid this book is a disappointment after "Jumper" and "Wildside". It's nothing huge, but rather an accumulation of small faults. The cast of characters in this novel is larger than those of Gould's earlier works, and isn't introduced as well. Seigfried and his son Sylvan are introduced on the same page, and I had to flip back twice to keep them straight. Same with Arthur and Anthony. One character is referred to by his title, his surname, and his given name within a handful of paragraphs--good luck keeping that straight. Much of the plot hinges on geography, and we aren't given a map of this world. We do get our hero's family tree, when a brief character list (a la those big fat fantasy books) would do us a lot more good. Most irritatingly, the climax of the book...is a cheesy TV-movie touch, and it really got on my nerves. The really frustrating part is that these are beginner's mistakes. They should have been caught by somebody during the writing process. I'd have to sum it up by telling you to wait for the paperback as well. This is an adequate story, adequately told. No more than that, sadly.
Rating:
Summary: i liked it
Review: Once long ago I picked up a ragged looking copy of Jumper from a library sale and decided that I should give that book a chance. I loved it!!! No other auther seems to tell a story like Gould does. Just recently I read HELM and it was great! Just like Gould's other books I did not know what to expect. The fighting scenes were wonderful and seem to paint themselves across my mind. I cannot wait for his next book!
Rating: 
Summary: Once you start to read Gould's books, you just can't stop!!!
Review: Once long ago I picked up a ragged looking copy of Jumper from a library sale and decided that I should give that book a chance. I loved it!!! No other auther seems to tell a story like Gould does. Just recently I read HELM and it was great! Just like Gould's other books I did not know what to expect. The fighting scenes were wonderful and seem to paint themselves across my mind. I cannot wait for his next book!
Rating:
Summary: As an Aikido student, this was very happy reading.
Review: Speaking as Aikidoka -- a student of Aikido -- this book brought tears to my eyes. Happy tears, tears of remembrance of my own times on the mat. From the first utterance of "Onaigashimasu..." to the folding of the hakama, this was a complete, exact, and poignantly real depiction of what it is like to study Aikido. As Aikidoka say, this book has Ai-ki, harmonious energy. The philosophy of the martial art is woven delicately yet unswervingly through the plot, and everything balances at the end. A "TV show ending?" I think not. It simply did not bash the bad guys over the head like most stories. Instead, the characters followed the true principles of Aikido, the good guys using the energy of the bad guys to defeat them. Well done, Mr. Gould, if you read this...and I would be honored to practice with you, should you ever come into the dojo where I practice.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not Great
Review: Steven Gould's first novel, "Jumper", was a great book -- good plot (slightly episodic), excellent character development, good handling of the speculative elements. His next novels, "Wildside" and "Greenwar" (the latter with Laura J. Mixon), were also top-notch. I signed up to buy "Helm" five months before publication (thanks, Amazon.com!), because I'm really, really sorry I didn't buy a hardcover copy of Jumper when it was available. It pains me to say this, but "Helm" is not at the same level as its predecessors. The start of the story gives us the destruction of Earth in a nuclear holocaust, and the terraforming and colonization of a planet circling a nearby star. The colonists are "imprinted", so they'll remember to do basic things, like eat a balanced diet, in their new world. There's a "small planet" feel to the story -- an entire earth-like planet's been terraformed, but all the action, and the focus of the civilization, takes place in an area that's at most a few hundred miles in diameter. The contrast between the terraforming technology, and the subsequent pre-gunpowder society, seemed highly artificial to me. One reason for the low-tech post-terraforming society is that it provides the setting for one of the major devices of the story: Aikido as a viable martial art. I studied Aikido for many years, and I enjoyed reading the Aikido terms (some of which were new to me, and many of which I'd forgotten) in "Helm". The sweaty sessions in the dojo were true to my experience (except the hero's pre-programmed Aikido knowledge, of course), but I don't know whether the descriptions were evocative enough for people who haven't studied Aikido. Overall, the character development was a bit choppy, the plot was a little too much "march and fight, march and fight", and the handling of the speculative elements was a little disappointing. This is by no means a bad book; it's just not another Jumper. Buy this book in hardcover if you're into Aikido; otherwise, consider waiting for the paperback.
Rating:
Summary: A quick read with both sci-fi and fantasy elements.
Review: This is a book that I couldn't put down. It has both science fiction and fantasy elements and a plot that doesn't bog down in the middle. I thought the premise of an instrument that could imbue you with knowledge or be used to turn you into a mush-minded puppet was a good balance. It gives a good example of the possible pros & cons of experimental mental/biological technology. This was the first book of Steven Gould's that I read and I plan on checking out more of his work because I enjoyed this one so much.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story - Eye Candy for plane trips
Review: This is a good read and was hard to put down. I read a lot of Scifi and fantasy and am not so easy to keep hooked to a story any more. gould is a fine writer; I enjoyed his Jumper story and I enjoyed this one even more. Only reason I didnt give it a five is that I can think of a couple other stories that are even better - such as Martin's Game of Thrones.
Rating:
Summary: Good Writing, Bad Editing
Review: This novel, while a good story in and of itself, makes your realize the importance of a good editor, or at the least, a good proofreader. Much of it was very good, but its goodness was marred by the countless errors present in the text.
The story itself is an excellent tale of a feudal-style colony of humans descended from those colonists who were sent to this planet after a global catastrophe made earth uninhabitable. Much of the story centers on the politics, interactions and betrayals amongst the nobles, as alliances are formed and broken in the quest to control more of the scant livable land on the planet. The sendentary peoples of the continent prepare for war against the nomadic tribes of Nullarbor, and dark plans are made against friendly nations while their armies are away.
The hero of the story, Leland du Laal, the youngest son of the local ruling noble, has for whatever reason climbed the Needle, a forbidding rock spire, and donned the Helm, which is supposed to be charging in the sun in preparation for Leland's oldest brother to put on. The Helm infuses the wearer with the total of all human knowledge, and was created to help the colonists set up a good colony. After months of punishment, Leland is sent away to study Aikido, and comes back to lead an army against the nomads.
The characters in the story are well drawn out, if not totally believable. The bad guys seem a little too needlessly cruel, in my opinion. Granted, it makes it easier to hate them and root for the good guys, but some of the things they do go beyond simple conquest of a neighboring province. Leland himself is very likeable as a character, as is his second in command, Gahnfeld. The interaction between the two is enjoyable, and most of the sections about Leland's army make the book worth reading.
My main problem with the book came from all the sloppy phrasings and editing errors that were spread throughout the whole book. Twice, two supporting characters change names, as do a couple place names. Typographical errors litter the prose. Several clumsy phrasings jar the otherwise expert writing style, which could have been cleared up with a slight rephrasing. Things like, "He stood up next to the table and put his hands down on the table." Clumsy phrasings that a simple pronoun would fix. Pedantic types might not be able to get past that.
This book might take a little more suspension of disbelief than either of Gould's previous two novels. I'm not quite sure why so many people in the colony world study Aikido, but overlooking that, it's a well-created fictional future Gould has formed for his story. The book is fast-paced, and very hard to put down. I'd say it's worth plodding through the errors. The ending was kind of a disappointment, but ignore the epilogue and it's much better.
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