Review Summaries

• Readers value the alien perspectives and thriller movement, while some find the ending less satisfying. The strength of the premise and readability remain memorable.

Reviews

• I really enjoyed this book

  I really enjoyed this book. Good old science fiction. Kind of reminded me, a bit, of the Steven King book 'Dreamcatcher'.

• One very, very good book.

  The first thing that really caught my attention was the writing style. The beginning of every book is like that first drink. You are getting in perspective about the time, place, and characters who will participate in the story. This part of most books is usually tedious, but necessary. However, in this book the author writing style shields you away from any possible tediousness. It hooks up your interest right after the second page and bombards you with details at a tremendous speed. You just can't stop reading. At the same time the author manages to structure his book with the perfect balance between grammatical complexity and grammatical simplicity. Essentially, he does not make it more grammatically complex than necessary. This results in a book that flows smoothly, letting your mind to fly through the story in a totally effortless fashion. Some writers out there bear the misconception that an extremely complex and elaborated grammatical structure will make their books more sophisticated and worthy. How wrong they are. The book indirectly touches philosophical issues and amazing possible paths for evolution in other planets. In my opinion the most impressive element in this book is that it let you look at the whole human phenomena from a whole different perspective, from the other side of alien eyes. This book develops an impressive idea and presents it to you in one of the smoothest and most comprehensive narratives I have ever come across. Starting right now with "The engines of God". This is one of the tedious ones, but it still can turn out great.

• Good but not great

  I read "The Forever War" by the same author before reading this book. Both books have won the prestigious Sci Fi awards, but I was disappointed with thus one. While the plot is very interest groups and the pace very good, one feels the book was written with movie in mind. Forever war , had underlying philosophy and commentary on social and cultural impacts due to war and technology but this one does not.

• A very good SF alien story.

  I really loved this Haldeman alien on earth story (so far I like all Haldeman's novels I've read) There are two of these aliens on earth here. One of the aliens is mutch written of until the end. Some people had written the 2nd alien was more like a filler. I disagree. Really gread read that is filled with a feeling, 'how will this end?'. I was hooked from start to finish. Righly deserved a 2005 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

• UN PEU INQUIETANT

  Du bon Joe Haldeman, surtout en VO. Par contre le thème est un peu inquiétant...il laisse un petit froid dans le dos. Mais je recommande sans hésiter !

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