This book wastes no time getting into the action, which is both a good and bad thing. On one hand, no long drawn out backstories and a focus on fun space action. On the other hand, a lackluster cast of relatively 1 dimensional characters and a simple plot.
The action is fun and engaging, albeit a bit simple. I felt there wasn’t a lot of descriptive imagery to work off of, so imagining how everything looked and happened was a bit difficult. It was to the point “character goes here and shoots this thing and then goes there” etc. Which surprisingly didn’t get tiring.
What dis get tiring however is most of the dialogue. Just about all of the dialogue in this book is expositing, epxlaining what’s going on or what they’re going to do etc etc. Our protagonist, Dash, tells the mech’s ai “yea yea I know” what felt like several dozen times. There were a few comedic bits that made me chuckle however, which makes me wish the overall book was more light hearted and funny. A space opera about giant mechs and wise cracking pilots sounds great.
Speaking of which, the characters. You got Dash the self centered, kinda snarky, kinda hard ass, sexually charged pilot. Liera(?) who’s personality is simply “girl”. Conover, the unamused tech guy. Victor, aka engineer man. And Sentinel, the mech’s advanced female voiced ai, who is about as robotic as it gets. Aside from that the characters don’t have much going for them in terms of actual personality.
The plot was straight forward as well. I hate to use the word generic but that’s what it felt like. Quite “cookie cutter” in structure.
I also felt myself comparing many things in the book to Halo. Clan Sheerna(?), one of the baddies groups, is essentially The Covenant. The “Unseen” are totally the Forerunners. The Golden were somewhat unique, but had simple minded “wipe the galaxy” goals. Unfortunately that’s all there really is for aliens, I wish the main cast was comprised of aliens instead if all humans.
The narration was acceptable. No noticeable hiccups or audio issues, which is good. Nothing too special.
Some random thoughts: 1) The ending feels out of place. I feel like this was one large book cut into multiple books to make into a multi book series. 2) I think the book could have worked a lot better in first person, as the perspective is entirely on Dash the entire time. That could have given us more insight into his thoughts and decisions. 3)This would make a great graphic novel!
Final thoughts: Despite all it’s faults, I rather liked this book. It was a nice simple action adventure story to sink my teeth into and kill some time. I am certainly going to continue the series and see what happens next.
I would recommend to anyone who enjoys cheesy scifi stories with big mechs in space.