Matt Smith's Reviews > Altered Starscape

I wasn't expecting much from Altered Starscape. I don't tend to like hard sci fi, and Douglas (Keith) pushes out so many books that I had a hard time thinking this one would be good. Add to that the preponderance of mixed reviews and I wasn't even sure I would finish it.

I'm pleased to have been wrong; Altered Starscape turned out to be really good. Not only did it give me a few hours of entertainment, it also may have reignited some interest in space that Endeavour initially ignited back in 5th grade, the first time that three humans 'walked' in space for the first time in history. I remember thinking about all the possibilities- everything we would achieve regarding space travel, even life in space.

One of the major problems with hard sci fi is the massive infodumping. Douglas doesn't escape that here, but it's (generally) woven into the story in a way that isn't as awful or jarring as you sometimes find. There's a great feeling of exploration, and the dumps tend to happen around that. They're probably too elementary for the regular or hardcore fan of hard sci fi, but for someone who doesn't read that much of the genre, they were just right.

Also great was the sense of a living universe happening with or without the protagonists. St. Clair isn't the galaxy's biggest player (yet), and he has no idea what's happening around him. While he didn't make any major mistakes in this book, he certainly doesn't have the air of infallibility that so many authors give a main character, and I appreciate that.

The book's not without problems. Civilians are painted as power hungry slimes, while the military personnel are honorable and farsighted. That got annoying very, very fast.

Humanity is also pretty damn anglo-American centric 150 years in the future, and Islam of course is mentioned twice in the book, both times disparagingly (the "war-torn Caliphate" and the weak willed leaders who failed to address Islamic terrorism).

Dialogue isn't the greatest, and rarely drives the story. Too many of the characters have no development whatsoever, and what development there is rarely seems earned. Most of them could be replaced easily with stock sci fi character A, or grizzled veteran C and it wouldn't affect the story.

This complaints aside, I honestly can't wait to read the rest of the series just to see where it goes.