First Review of 2009

Hi,

So I finished reading The Great Planet Robbery by Craig DiLouie. It starts off very strong, builds well towards the middle, then you realize that there's not even 250 pages to this thing so the ending is going to be...well, there it goes.

You've got Dobbs and Muldoon, two Federation Marines who are, like most spacers, looking for ways to make a quick buck. Stuck on a backwater rock for something they did hundreds of standard years ago (hooray, more time dilation stories!), they meet up with an old starship pilot who tells them about a fantastic planet of gold. They quietly round up a crew and take off to loot the planet and become fabulously wealthy.

Problems arise.

Of course they do and in a classic nod to traditional comedy every conceivable sort of disastrous happenstance lurches into action and converges on the innocent planet Dobbs and Muldoon are headed towards. And, as you might expect, they all sort of crash into each other and our heroes escape out the back. But, it just never quite came together for me. It all seems a little hurriedly dashed off. The conclusion is less than satisfying.

later
Tom

First Review of 2009

Hi,

So I finished reading The Great Planet Robbery by Craig DiLouie. It starts off very strong, builds well towards the middle, then you realize that there's not even 250 pages to this thing so the ending is going to be...well, there it goes.

You've got Dobbs and Muldoon, two Federation Marines who are, like most spacers, looking for ways to make a quick buck. Stuck on a backwater rock for something they did hundreds of standard years ago (hooray, more time dilation stories!), they meet up with an old starship pilot who tells them about a fantastic planet of gold. They quietly round up a crew and take off to loot the planet and become fabulously wealthy.

Problems arise.

Of course they do and in a classic nod to traditional comedy every conceivable sort of disastrous happenstance lurches into action and converges on the innocent planet Dobbs and Muldoon are headed towards. And, as you might expect, they all sort of crash into each other and our heroes escape out the back. But, it just never quite came together for me. It all seems a little hurriedly dashed off. The conclusion is less than satisfying.

later
Tom