I've only read the first two, but I've a couple of friends who say it goes off the rails slightly in Book 4, but that it comes roaring back for Book 5.

Yeah, they came up with a plausible way to not have all the belters be freakishly tall as they are in the books. Managed to make interesting even, tying in the varying levels of treatment with class issues. A clever way to get around the limitations of the medium.

Yeah, I'm glad this didn't have thundering taiko drums, as awesome as they can be. The more ambient and electronic vibe they're going for here appeals to me greatly.

It really is so dense. I was pausing it at regular intervals to soak in all the little details.

Great review Zack! I'm glad you're the one reviewing this, as a veteran sci-fi reviewer. It's good to have a proper space opera again.

Yeah, but Empire? C'mon now.

This is pretty dead on. I enjoy it a hell of a lot more than Buffy Season 7, that's for sure.

This first is goddamn awesome in "Conversations with Dead People" at least. But yeah, pretty lame in the end.

Does Eastwood and his orang-utan count?

I really liked Blindsight. I think Peter F Hamilton's aliens in Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained are also compelling, very alien and horrifying,

You mentioned the Forever War above, which is one of my favourite books. Would you say the warfare in that book is plausible?

Miller is such a sad sack that you picture him older I think. He's only 49 in the books, Jane is 46.

They've got something called an "Epstein Drive" that enables much greater speeds. I'm not sure there's ever actually any explanation on how it works. It's the fastest they can go, but they can't leave the solar system, even if they can travel fairly quickly within it.

I agree, she's awesome. I kind of feel they should have introduced her

Thankfully there's no annoying teenagers or alternate reality in this.

I'm pretty apprehensive about Chidhood's End, it's gonna be hard to do that justice. But I've been really impressed with the effort they put into this, so maybe there's hope.

Wonderful! Zack is one of the best reviewers, and he's certain to give it a chance as a big sci-fi guy.

I was about to say. People are fine with the 8 or so intercutting story lines in GoT, is it really that hard to keep track of 3 very distinct story lines?

I was a big fan of Jammer's short arc, though Kelly had some great moments too.

Hey, Last Action Hero is fun! But point taken