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Rating: 
Summary: Thouroughly enjoyed, prior earth civilization theory/mystery
Review: Brooding flavor, some times pessimistic. I would almost call this high adventure, but for the somber tones and mystery. I just happened to pick this book up on vacation and still have not read Emprise (1st book) or Empery (3rd book).
Rating:
Summary: A Challenging Mystery
Review: Overall this book is quite good. Its flavor is a tad more subtle than the previous book in the series, and marks the difficult middle ground between the dramatic Emprise and the conclusive Empery. As a yarn, I place it rather high, and Kube-McDowell manages to hold onto his audience in this one, better than say, Inherit the Stars did with its sequel. The story here is quite clever: Humans went to the stars thousands of years ago, but how did they get there, and why did the initial attempts at interstellar travel fail. Good stuff!
Rating:
Summary: A Challenging Mystery
Review: Overall this book is quite good. Its flavor is a tad more subtle than the previous book in the series, and marks the difficult middle ground between the dramatic Emprise and the conclusive Empery. As a yarn, I place it rather high, and Kube-McDowell manages to hold onto his audience in this one, better than say, Inherit the Stars did with its sequel. The story here is quite clever: Humans went to the stars thousands of years ago, but how did they get there, and why did the initial attempts at interstellar travel fail. Good stuff!
Rating:
Summary: Starts Slow, But Ends Well
Review: Second books of trilogies are notoriously weak--maybe because you don't get the thrill of discovering a fictional world for the first time *or* the satisfaction of (hopefully) seeing the plot threads wrapped up. _Enigma_, the second book in Kube-McDowell's "Trigon Disunity" trilogy, is no exception. It takes forever to get moving, bogging down for nearly half its length following its bland, seemingly unlikable hero--Meritt Thackery through early adulthood and into the business of surveying the galaxy.Character has never been Kube-McDowell's greatest strength, and this book is no exception. Thackery doesn't grab your attention or, for most of the book, engage your emotions. I found myself wanting *someone* to solve the huge, multi-faceted mystery at the center of the story . . . but not caring a bit whether it was him or someone else. Then, about the halfway point in the plot, _Enigma_ begins to pick up speed. The Mystery (and the solving of it) takes center stage, and Kube-McDowell ratchets the pace up to the headlong rush that he sustained throughout _Emprise_. By the end of the book, the Mystery has been satisfyingly solved (revealing a very clear but even bigger Problem to be worked out in _Empery_), and (glory be!) Merrit Thackery has become an interesting character. My overall judgement of _Emprise_ goes for this one, too: It's similar in flavor and tone to the works of Arthur C. Clarke, and well worth a look for those who like Clarke's cool, austere, galaxy-spanning style of storytelling.
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