First off, I loved the book overall. I found Freeman's newfound humanity to be well done. For the only recurring character besides Harris in all the books, I think the change in character was not awkward in the least.
I was also sad to see Illych die during the first SIP detonation. The transitioning between the Hinode Fleet and Harris was perfect. Sad to see Yoshi go down with his ship though.
Now for the end... well the final battle was just one of those "can't put the book down moments" but for what was supposed to be the end(?), it felt a bit lackluster. I have no clue if that was going to be the tentative end to The Clone * saga or not, but given that you're writing a new book it is just another one of your great cliffhanger endings that makes me salivate for October.
I agree with Glenn, liked everything but the fact that the end was rushed. ok a couple questions lol,
Did the UA know it was the japanese fleet and just wanted to kill them?
Maybe i missed it, but doesnt Harris still have his spy stealth shit with a self broadcasting, so he could contact the rest of the fleet?
If he is in control of earth, then doesnt he have access to self broadcasting ships?
IS freeman dead? or did u leave it open ended?
Overall, a great book and it does set it up for more books and i cant wait for them.
Also, loved the Seals v Yakuza. Wished u spent more time on that.
Sorry, my post is all over the place, i am the one who asked for this and felt i needed to respond, just at work and dont have time to get all my thoughts in order. Eric
I started reading this series from when the first book came out. I worked at a barnes and noble and was given an advance copy of the clone republic for free. I have thoroughly enjoyed the series, though I do feel(please forgive some honest criticism) that the world Wayson Harris lives in seems quite sadistic towards him. The man/clone has saved the galaxy several times and there isn't a single person who seems in any way genuinely appreciative. Now for real appreciation. I think that this book is by far the best you have written in the series. There is real progress made with the character. The dynamics between the individuals in the military and Wayson feel real. Politically he cannot be the leader of the EME, but he can be the force behind the figure head. I appreciate the subtle nod towards ancient japanese governmental systems. If my comments seem double edged I assure you they are not. This is a genuinely great book. I do not take the main character to signify a real person, but a metaphor for a human's battle with themselves and society. Yamashiro realizing that his society is much further behind being perfect (by japanese standards) when compared to the kage no yasha. It is similar to the unspoken admiration Freeman has for Wayson. Wayson being a souless clone who will give everything for a humanity that despises him. Your book is clever and I appreciate the chance to tell you this. Thank you.
I just finished the book yesterday, and I was very happy with the ending. I think you did a very good job summing it up, but still keeping it open to the future.
I did think the last few pages happened pretty quickly, but it was still fantastic.
One question though. During the last couple pages of the epilogue, you mentioned that the population of Earth was only 50 million. Wow! What happened to the other 7 billion? Very curious to know.
I just finished the book. It's the end of my shift at work and won't be very elegant. I'll write a real review tonight.
It was great Steven. There were spots where I got testy eyed and the emotion was so real, and visceral. Then we're spots where I'd mutter to myself, "Kent you blood thirsty bastard."
I love the SEALs. This is me being girly and gushing, but I think they're adorable. Like dogs that are so ugly they become cute. The more the narrative went on about how ugly and awkward they were, the cuter I found them. Did they really all die out in Bode's?
Harris' attitude sort of started to wear on me this time around. It seemed like he wasn't as angry. In the past, overwhelming odds may depress him, upset him, cause him philosophical pause, but he had that angry fire. Without it this time around, he seemed, less.
Thanks again for a great story. Can't wait to see what's next.
I was wondering when we would hear from you, JenMo. It's been a while.
I like your summation of the Boyds. Remember, 100 of them deplaned with the colony on New Copenhagen. I sort of envision them as being like the Samurai in Seven Samurai.
Jordan, Earth was largely depopulated and used as a museum. It was still the home of the film industry--as films were designed at that time to remind outer colonies of their tie to Earth. Earth was the seat the government--explaining the population on North America. It was also home to the military orphanages. The officer corps came from Earth but not necessarily the pre-Boyd Clone SEALs. The Naval Academy was located in Australia.
Also, Earth was home to a thriving tourism business--which again built bonds between colonists and Earth.
The seven billion had mostly been deported to the colonies.
JenMo, when I was writing this one, I had to help Harris balance two emotions--fury with Earth and absolute resolve with the Avatari. There was no point in being angry, they were a force. I have been through two hurricanes in my life and I can tell you that there's no point getting angry at the weather.
There was one other new anger, for Harris that I tried to expose--anger at God. Remember, he dabbled in religion in Alliance and has generally been sympathetic in the other books. Not in this one.
Thanks Steven! That's what I figured, but when I looked to the "history of" section at the beginning, I didn't find what I was looking for but I may have overlooked it.
I'm facinated in your history of the universe here, and I think you've done a great job leaving everything open, where nobody knows who exists, or if they're even still alive.
I also enjoyed the different emotions of Harris in this book though. The absolute rage at the end due to the implant was new and fresh. All in all, incredible novel. I don't think anyone could say it enough!
IT WAS EPIC!!!! Just finished it a day ago and LOVED it, except I thought the first 100 pages were a bit boring. I cant wait for the next book. Can you give a little hint about whats in it? Also are the Avatari completely dead? I mean it doesn't seem likely they conquered so many plants just to live on one single planet.
First hundred pages boring? Yikes. Actually, I think they were slow. I wanted the book to build and build in momentum.
And, yes, the Avatari are absolutely dead. As you may have noticed, character stay dead in these books... except maybe for Sweetwater and Breeze who are only technically dead.
Expansion never interested the Avatari, they simply wanted to harvest from other planets.
I guess if you're dead, can you elaborate more on what the Avatari were supposed to be? I mean from your description it seemed as though they were machines, or was that more of the avatars attacking the ship?
Once a writer publishes a story, I think he no longer has a lock on the "one" right interpretation. The way I envisioned it, the Avatari nation had died off having not been beaten in war. What remained was a quasi-holographic expansion that did not expansion program that used avatars to evict inhabitants from planets and a robotic defense that was meant to come across as both powerful and somewhat antiquated as the Avatari had not been attacked in hundreds of thousands of years.
A bunch of masterless avatars who know nothing but destruction and strip mining. Maybe the masters of the avatari have been gone for however long Illych had said when they first visited their moons.
Very mysterious Mr. Kent! I hope the EME and Japanese get to reunite. Even though we all know you're probably writing the next novel as we speak :)
Bought the book last thursday and finished it tuesday. Found the first book by accident and absolutely loved it. Bought all the rest afterwards and have read them all probably between 10-15 times. I love the universe you created. This last book was so worth the wait. Granted i hate waiting a whole year for the next one i now have 7 books to keep me occupied.
I loved the entertwining story lines. it was kind of a nice break from following just one thread. I have to say from the moment you introduced the Avatari in the clone alliance i was so amped up to read more of them and you did not dissapoint. with each book they kept getting better and more terrifying. and in this one they can torch planets? thats pretty insane but i loved the helplesness that Wayson felt. it made him more real. and the rage outburst at the end is something i have been waiting to see from him since the first book. it was almost as if he had just lost all control over himself and was like a dog pinned in the corner with nothing to lose. great book. i have no complaints at all.
thanks for creating this amazing universe and although im sure it gets stale writing about the same things over and over again i sure hope to see more from Wayson, Freeman, Yoshi, Mars and those pesky naturals.
Oh I didn't forget about the 100 SEALs left with the Japanese, but I've been hoping that somehow the others found a way to broadcast out off the planet. I wanted them all to survive! And I guess while I'm wishing for things that will never happen, (of course they didn't get out of there) I would also like a SEAL of my own. I'd really like to hug one!
I may have missed this in the timeline of how things progressed, but did Providence Kri end up getting torched, or did the Avatari home world get nuked first? Did any of the planets, besides Earth, squeak by?
I was wondering about the Avatari too. That they were a dead society, with technology that lived on without them, adds a scary creepy factor. Though I still want to know what they actually looked like. What kind of beings were they? Ultra arrogant? If they think they can wipe out life from entire galaxies. And had they done it to others between their galaxy and ours?
I wasn't sad to see Ava go either. After she cheated on Harris..... Maybe Harris' next love interest can be named Jenny? And perhaps not killed brutally by a psychotic clone? Just throwing that out there....
I just posted a formal review on Amazon... hope it's not too fan-girlish.
If he knew Jennifer Morman was on the other end of the line and that he would not be subjected to forensic psychoanalysis... He'd hop in the box with a smile on his snout!
Just finished the book today! I've been super busy with a new job and haven't been able to post much here. Anyway...
The book was a lightning fast read for me, couldn't wait to get back to it every time I had to put it down. Probably one of the best of the series so far, though that's a hard judgement to make since I like them all so much.
I particularly enjoyed the new Freeman! He had a few one-liners that actually made me laugh out loud, and I never realized he was such a smart guy....the warehouses... a bit of a deus ex machina on your part, but brilliant on Freeman's part! I'm glad you decided to give him a bigger role. I also enjoyed the emotion you injected; there were quite a few scenes that were very powerful such as with Ava and Harris, the Japanese fleet, the Boyds, and with the patriotism of the EME's navy. There really were some great examples of emotional content that I don't remember seeing in the previous stories, and at the same time you were able to keep all of the action and the breakneck speed. I also want to second the notion that for the story you wanted to tell it was a great idea to split the novel into two threads. Every time you switched over I wanted to stay with the previous section, so it really kept me interested in finding out what would happen next for each group.
As far as the ending goes... unfortunately I'm going to have to agree with some of the others above and say that it did seem a little abrupt to me. I'm trying hard to come up with a reason why I feel this way in order to give you some better criticism but I'm having a hard time with it. The epilogue was fine and it tied everything up well, I think maybe just the part before the epilogue felt like it was missing something. In any case, that's a very minor complaint given how good the book was overall, and especially considering that you're adding another book to the series for me to look forward to.
On the subject of the next book in the series, I have to point out that you wrote in the Author's note that you doubted you would have "The Clone [fill in the blank]" in the title of the next book. Not that I'm complaining of course! Can't wait to read it no matter what the title is.
Congratulations on another incredible story, and thank you for keeping me entertained as usual.
Jordan, as always you are far too generous. The Science Fiction Book club agrees with you. They released two hardback Harris collections which they titled, The Clone Identity and The Clone Supremacy.
The Science Fiction Book Club released books 1-3 in one omnibus and 4-6 in another. Last month they released a hardback version of The Clone Redemption as well.
Since they are so expensive, it's rare that I pick them up brand new, save for a few authors, so that would be exciting to see the entire series in hardcover.
I'd like to think I'll be one of the last people in the world to own real books. There's something about looking at bookcases full.
I realize that in today's world, that all sounds crazy to most people. I will still never get rid of any of my books. Also, if ever there were a chance to go to a book signing, you can't sign a Kindle now can you!
I'm still 95% paper books. I don't have an e-reader, though I have the kindle and apple iBooks app on my phone. There are a couple authors out there that I like, self publishing short stories and novellas in e-format only, so it's nice to be able to access those.
I prefer hardbacks. If books were common in leather bound, with the gold edging.... I'd so go that way. I'm about to get a book themed tattoo for my bday next month.
I don't think "geek" and tattoo go together. Well, maybe if you were getting Bill Gates or Harry Potter tattoos. A Harry Potter lightning bolt on your forehead would be a sure sign of geekdom.
I tried to explain to my boyfriend yesterday how awesome our "FedEx an ABC to me" conversation was. He just shook his head and called me geek. At least he thinks it's cute.
I have a friend who is the middle of getting a full sleeve tattoo of A Song of Ice and Fire by GRRM themed.
Are we talking plush dolls? ABC pillow pets? Action figures? I'm picturing a 2' tall stuffed doll. I'd totally get one or two, though I'm not sure they would appeal to a larger market.
Hi Steven. I picked up the series at the release of your 3rd book. I've enjoyed each novel and hope for more. I would ask for something i find lacking in most sci-fi novels... concept art. I'm not sure how adept you are at drawing (i have trouble with stick figures myself.... but give me a drafting table and i'll make you a star ship!) i just love having the facts clear in my mind or seeing how close my imagination came to yours. just a thought....
i finished the book the third day i got it which was when it came out but sadly couldn't comment on it because my Internet was down and now for the comment/s i will be making. i loved the book it was amazing, and the transition from Harris to the Japanese fleet was well played. i was sad however that Illych died but his replacement and his friend were the funnest abc clones you ever wrote. i am confused on the plant that Illych landed on and the structure he was in was that an avatari one help planet or what. Harris as a roman praetorian guard was a nice touch on a history well dead for this time period and the way the admirals died was nice. it seemed to me that ava just lost her mind because of what happened to her students and might go suicidal. freeman by far was the best written character and the whole character change from being a ruthless killing to a 7foot killing machine with a human heart was weird but if you take into consideration that his whole tribe or colony was killed i can see the change. now for the last bit the final battle was interesting but for the shields to do down because of a snow storm was kind of hard to believe but i believed it. and as for them being stranded on earth i dont think so doesnt earth still have the scientfic exploration ships or am i wrong because i thought their were hundreds of them and we only saw if you count the whole books or starting from book number 3 i would say that we only read about 5-6 of them. ps i do not know if this was said on here and the answer was given. oh and i will just end by saying the ending of the book seemed like this would have been the last book with the clones taking over earth the japans es now have a planet to them selves and the humans defeated
All excellent points, Amer; but from you I have long since learned to expect nothing but good points.
The scientific fleet is a possibility for future installments, as is the temporary broadcast satellite that was missing from Mars but not necessarily destroyed, and--as E points out--there was no word given about what may or may not have happened to Harris's spy ship.
As soon as the snow started falling I was like, "take that you bastards!" when the shields then failed, i wasn't surprised at all. I thought it was a pretty perfect way to even the odds.
It's funny. There's a guy on Amazon who wrote a pretty good review, but he found that part unbelievable and said that they would have tested for the snow. I wanted to point out that in Hawaii. they imported mongooses to kill the rats in the pineapple fields--only rats are nocturnal and mongooses only come out during the day so they actually doubled the infestation. During Desert Storm the U.S. Army discovered that the helicopters engines got choked by sand. General Motors actually tried to market the Nova in South America as the Nova--in Spanish, No Va means It Doesn't Go. Does this guy really believe that Armies, states, and other organizations do not make mistakes? Most of the guy's other criticisms were pretty valid--though I didn't agree with him about the Stealth Reentry Pods.
I completely agree with you there, and I read that review this morning. I think it's not only that governments do make those kind of testing mistakes, but the UA tending to get cocky after developing the shielded armor, right?
Theoretically, the shields did exactly what they were intended to do, which was shield the user against projectiles, no matter what the "projectiles" were made of. Snow is technically a solid, so I don't see how it wouldn't make sense that it wouldn't affect the shields at all.
Not all science fiction can be 100% correct. It's called fiction for a reason people! I think docking the rating because it isn't all completely realistic, honestly, is a little harsh. We also don't clone humans, but he never mentioned that at all ;)
Overall I thought Doxycycline was very fair. Here's the deal. If you look at past reviews of the first books in the series, there was a guy who gave me a one-star and stopped reading in mid-book because I described stars as twinkling in space. (No kidding!)
I think Doxycycline is right, most readers expect more intelligence out of books than they do out of movies. He was nice enough to credit my writing, which I appreciated.
Now to his complaints--
The SIPs, as pointed out in the book, were so expensive they became impractical and they were developed as volatile transport devices, not bombs. As stated in the book, they only became practical when the entire human race was endangered and over 170 colonies were lost. Also, until that point it was humans fighting humans on planets populated by humans. I don't think any government would spend billions of dollars to develop planet-destroying bombs to use on its own planets.
Next is his point about the armor, which is a fair point--except that it A) Ignores so many historical (and hysterical) mistakes; B) brings up something that comes into play again later--that the U.A. rushed to get the armor out in The Clone Betrayal because it was taken by surprise when Harris captured the self-broadcasting ships. His third and fourth point, I think, show weakness in my work--I was not able to communicate that the entire book took place in a matter or weeks, not giving the U.A. time to build more ships--which they could not build anyways because the clones captured the Golan Dry Docks.
Can't argue about his physics qualms. All I can say is "Good point. I'll try not to make that mistake in the future." Though that will be hard with the maximum speeds as they have appeared in the previous six books. Chalk that down as something I wish he had mentioned in 2005.)
Overall, I thought Doxycycline worked hard to be fair.
Fairer than most, I'll say that. Though it's a well known fact that people manipulate the Amazon rating system pretty badly at times. Though it Redemption has a great rating nonetheless.
I think there were a couple things that you pointed out briefly, that some people are upset didn't get stretched out a bit more, but what can you do, right?
That does bring up a fun thought though. Have you ever thought about putting all of the details, technology, etc, into a separate book? Sort of how David Weber has put a lot of the technical things into his secondary line of Harrington novels (ship specs, weapons, technical info). Maybe a thin-ish novel with some nice drawings. I think a lot of people love that kind of stuff, since it makes the stories and characters feel more "real".
As to Doxycycline, I think he gave me the rating he honestly felt I deserved. I'd love to get all fives, but the man was honest and he gave me things to watch out for in the future. No complaints.
Just finished the book a few minutes ago. Had to wait quite a while until Amazon in Germany could deliver it. What upset me was how rushed the conclusion was. I wish there'd have been more closure. (After getting more and more reason to abhor the UA I was hoping for total desolation of the UA power structure and its leaders.) Would have been nice to learn more about how things went on Terraneau and New Copenhagen. What happened to Ava? I did like her a bit more in this novel. One of the real highlights for me was that finally a good leader for the EME stepped up. The briefing Holman gave (pages 274-278) was brilliant. Had been hoping for something like that for quite some time. Felt like shouting out "yes!" when I read that part.
Despite the end that was less satisfying for me, any book in the clone series is among the top books of the year. Without a doubt one of the best SciFi series out there.
The clones should take over military training and setup some kind of indoctrination that prevents the abuse and misuse of human life as happened in the UA.
Have you considered writing a collection of short stories in the Universe?
Maurice, in truth, I regret the way I ended the book. I have no one to blame but myself on that one. I felt like the battle in the airport had gone on so long and I did not want readers to lose interest, so I just sort of tied it off after that.
From the reader responses, it's obvious I made the wrong decision.
About a collection of short stories--I don't know about that, but I am writing the one-up Harris novels that I discussed in the past. These are set in the Harris universe, but they do not necessarily advance the storyline from first seven books.
Wow I'm late to the party, took me a lot longer to actually sit down and read than I thought it would.
I enjoyed the book. The Seal/Japanese portions of the book really took the take cake for me. The Boyd clones just seem to posses a certain human element that even the natural borns don't. If I had one knock on these books it would be the darker "everyone sucks" tone they took on. I guess I just like more of cheery idea of the future where the good guys are clearly the good guys. In these books everyone hates everyone and there is nary a good dead. In reality it probably is the more realistic view; but I like me some good old fashioned Roddenberry-esque camaraderie.
The ending to this book was pretty rushed, but it didn't bother me too much. You got to the point and wrapped up what needed to be wrapped up. I hate it when I'm reading a book and I can tell that the story is clearly wrapped up but there is still like 30 pages of fluff left.
Josh, you and my other friends have been very forgiving about the ending but the message is clear--I NEED TO TAKE A LITTLE MORE TIME. Same thing happened at the end of The Clone Elite.
I mean I really didn't have a problem with it being so quick there at the end. The only knock I have about the ending is that the snow killing their shields right on cue seemed a bit deus ex machina.
The snow has hit very mixed reviews with a lot of readers who liked it and many who thought it was too much of a deus ex or not believable.
Since I started hinting at that flaw in Betrayal and specified the problem in Empire, I feel good about not springing it on readers. Still, it was a bit on the fortuitous side.
72 comments:
First off, I loved the book overall. I found Freeman's newfound humanity to be well done. For the only recurring character besides Harris in all the books, I think the change in character was not awkward in the least.
I was also sad to see Illych die during the first SIP detonation. The transitioning between the Hinode Fleet and Harris was perfect. Sad to see Yoshi go down with his ship though.
Now for the end... well the final battle was just one of those "can't put the book down moments" but for what was supposed to be the end(?), it felt a bit lackluster. I have no clue if that was going to be the tentative end to The Clone * saga or not, but given that you're writing a new book it is just another one of your great cliffhanger endings that makes me salivate for October.
Wait! Yoshi didn't die. He went to New Copenhagen.
So was it the epilogue that you objected to?
I agree with Glenn, liked everything but the fact that the end was rushed. ok a couple questions lol,
Did the UA know it was the japanese fleet and just wanted to kill them?
Maybe i missed it, but doesnt Harris still have his spy stealth shit with a self broadcasting, so he could contact the rest of the fleet?
If he is in control of earth, then doesnt he have access to self broadcasting ships?
IS freeman dead? or did u leave it open ended?
Overall, a great book and it does set it up for more books and i cant wait for them.
Also, loved the Seals v Yakuza. Wished u spent more time on that.
Sorry, my post is all over the place, i am the one who asked for this and felt i needed to respond, just at work and dont have time to get all my thoughts in order.
Eric
Nope. The UA thought it was the clones, hence Tobias's talk about a "super torpedo."
Earth sent it's broadcasting fleet to destroy the clones at Terraneau.
There is no discussion about the spy ship; but you can bet Holman took it to Terraneau to survey the field.
So, again, was it the entire ending you disliked or just the epilogue?
Freeman is very much alive. He signaled Harris at the end of the battle at the airport.
Whoops... my mind totally slipped on that part. Well hey, there is another upside!
I started reading this series from when the first book came out. I worked at a barnes and noble and was given an advance copy of the clone republic for free. I have thoroughly enjoyed the series, though I do feel(please forgive some honest criticism) that the world Wayson Harris lives in seems quite sadistic towards him. The man/clone has saved the galaxy several times and there isn't a single person who seems in any way genuinely appreciative. Now for real appreciation. I think that this book is by far the best you have written in the series. There is real progress made with the character. The dynamics between the individuals in the military and Wayson feel real. Politically he cannot be the leader of the EME, but he can be the force behind the figure head. I appreciate the subtle nod towards ancient japanese governmental systems. If my comments seem double edged I assure you they are not. This is a genuinely great book. I do not take the main character to signify a real person, but a metaphor for a human's battle with themselves and society. Yamashiro realizing that his society is much further behind being perfect (by japanese standards) when compared to the kage no yasha. It is similar to the unspoken admiration Freeman has for Wayson. Wayson being a souless clone who will give everything for a humanity that despises him. Your book is clever and I appreciate the chance to tell you this. Thank you.
Wow! Thank you very much. I am humbled, and my entire family will tell you that is a rare event.
I just finished the book yesterday, and I was very happy with the ending. I think you did a very good job summing it up, but still keeping it open to the future.
I did think the last few pages happened pretty quickly, but it was still fantastic.
One question though. During the last couple pages of the epilogue, you mentioned that the population of Earth was only 50 million. Wow! What happened to the other 7 billion? Very curious to know.
I just finished the book. It's the end of my shift at work and won't be very elegant. I'll write a real review tonight.
It was great Steven. There were spots where I got testy eyed and the emotion was so real, and visceral. Then we're spots where I'd mutter to myself, "Kent you blood thirsty bastard."
I love the SEALs. This is me being girly and gushing, but I think they're adorable. Like dogs that are so ugly they become cute. The more the narrative went on about how ugly and awkward they were, the cuter I found them. Did they really all die out in Bode's?
Harris' attitude sort of started to wear on me this time around. It seemed like he wasn't as angry. In the past, overwhelming odds may depress him, upset him, cause him philosophical pause, but he had that angry fire. Without it this time around, he seemed, less.
Thanks again for a great story. Can't wait to see what's next.
I was wondering when we would hear from you, JenMo. It's been a while.
I like your summation of the Boyds. Remember, 100 of them deplaned with the colony on New Copenhagen. I sort of envision them as being like the Samurai in Seven Samurai.
Jordan, Earth was largely depopulated and used as a museum. It was still the home of the film industry--as films were designed at that time to remind outer colonies of their tie to Earth. Earth was the seat the government--explaining the population on North America. It was also home to the military orphanages. The officer corps came from Earth but not necessarily the pre-Boyd Clone SEALs. The Naval Academy was located in Australia.
Also, Earth was home to a thriving tourism business--which again built bonds between colonists and Earth.
The seven billion had mostly been deported to the colonies.
JenMo, when I was writing this one, I had to help Harris balance two emotions--fury with Earth and absolute resolve with the Avatari. There was no point in being angry, they were a force. I have been through two hurricanes in my life and I can tell you that there's no point getting angry at the weather.
There was one other new anger, for Harris that I tried to expose--anger at God. Remember, he dabbled in religion in Alliance and has generally been sympathetic in the other books. Not in this one.
Thanks Steven!
That's what I figured, but when I looked to the "history of" section at the beginning, I didn't find what I was looking for but I may have overlooked it.
I'm facinated in your history of the universe here, and I think you've done a great job leaving everything open, where nobody knows who exists, or if they're even still alive.
I also enjoyed the different emotions of Harris in this book though. The absolute rage at the end due to the implant was new and fresh. All in all, incredible novel. I don't think anyone could say it enough!
You are very kind, Jordan. As I have stated several times, it is a lucky writer who has readers like you.
IT WAS EPIC!!!! Just finished it a day ago and LOVED it, except I thought the first 100 pages were a bit boring. I cant wait for the next book. Can you give a little hint about whats in it? Also are the Avatari completely dead? I mean it doesn't seem likely they conquered so many plants just to live on one single planet.
First hundred pages boring? Yikes. Actually, I think they were slow. I wanted the book to build and build in momentum.
And, yes, the Avatari are absolutely dead. As you may have noticed, character stay dead in these books... except maybe for Sweetwater and Breeze who are only technically dead.
Expansion never interested the Avatari, they simply wanted to harvest from other planets.
I guess if you're dead, can you elaborate more on what the Avatari were supposed to be? I mean from your description it seemed as though they were machines, or was that more of the avatars attacking the ship?
Once a writer publishes a story, I think he no longer has a lock on the "one" right interpretation. The way I envisioned it, the Avatari nation had died off having not been beaten in war. What remained was a quasi-holographic expansion that did not expansion program that used avatars to evict inhabitants from planets and a robotic defense that was meant to come across as both powerful and somewhat antiquated as the Avatari had not been attacked in hundreds of thousands of years.
A bunch of masterless avatars who know nothing but destruction and strip mining. Maybe the masters of the avatari have been gone for however long Illych had said when they first visited their moons.
Very mysterious Mr. Kent! I hope the EME and Japanese get to reunite. Even though we all know you're probably writing the next novel as we speak :)
In my mind, the Avatari became a bit more frightening as a runaway train.
I agree completely. A proxy with no more purpose than to destroy with a limited set of rules. Kind of freaky, knowing you can never stop them.
Truly spooky! You just took my imagination to a new level.
Bought the book last thursday and finished it tuesday. Found the first book by accident and absolutely loved it. Bought all the rest afterwards and have read them all probably between 10-15 times. I love the universe you created. This last book was so worth the wait. Granted i hate waiting a whole year for the next one i now have 7 books to keep me occupied.
I loved the entertwining story lines. it was kind of a nice break from following just one thread. I have to say from the moment you introduced the Avatari in the clone alliance i was so amped up to read more of them and you did not dissapoint. with each book they kept getting better and more terrifying. and in this one they can torch planets? thats pretty insane but i loved the helplesness that Wayson felt. it made him more real. and the rage outburst at the end is something i have been waiting to see from him since the first book. it was almost as if he had just lost all control over himself and was like a dog pinned in the corner with nothing to lose. great book. i have no complaints at all.
thanks for creating this amazing universe and although im sure it gets stale writing about the same things over and over again i sure hope to see more from Wayson, Freeman, Yoshi, Mars and those pesky naturals.
Thank you, HomelessWaffle. By the way, that's quite a name.
Oh I didn't forget about the 100 SEALs left with the Japanese, but I've been hoping that somehow the others found a way to broadcast out off the planet. I wanted them all to survive! And I guess while I'm wishing for things that will never happen, (of course they didn't get out of there) I would also like a SEAL of my own. I'd really like to hug one!
I may have missed this in the timeline of how things progressed, but did Providence Kri end up getting torched, or did the Avatari home world get nuked first? Did any of the planets, besides Earth, squeak by?
I was wondering about the Avatari too. That they were a dead society, with technology that lived on without them, adds a scary creepy factor. Though I still want to know what they actually looked like. What kind of beings were they? Ultra arrogant? If they think they can wipe out life from entire galaxies. And had they done it to others between their galaxy and ours?
I wasn't sad to see Ava go either. After she cheated on Harris..... Maybe Harris' next love interest can be named Jenny? And perhaps not killed brutally by a psychotic clone? Just throwing that out there....
I just posted a formal review on Amazon... hope it's not too fan-girlish.
JenMo, Sad Sam's would be a different and disappointing place without you. Thank you for the review.
Wow, JenMo! I just saw your review on Amazon. If I had an ABC (Adam Boyd Clone), I'd FedEx him to you for your very own.
Steven you're too kind. I love Sad Sam's. We're not a big group, but there's definitely substance.
And an ABC being FedExed? That's just hilarious to think about. The poor guy probably wouldn't even mind being boxed up.
If he knew Jennifer Morman was on the other end of the line and that he would not be subjected to forensic psychoanalysis... He'd hop in the box with a smile on his snout!
Just finished the book today! I've been super busy with a new job and haven't been able to post much here. Anyway...
The book was a lightning fast read for me, couldn't wait to get back to it every time I had to put it down. Probably one of the best of the series so far, though that's a hard judgement to make since I like them all so much.
I particularly enjoyed the new Freeman! He had a few one-liners that actually made me laugh out loud, and I never realized he was such a smart guy....the warehouses... a bit of a deus ex machina on your part, but brilliant on Freeman's part! I'm glad you decided to give him a bigger role.
I also enjoyed the emotion you injected; there were quite a few scenes that were very powerful such as with Ava and Harris, the Japanese fleet, the Boyds, and with the patriotism of the EME's navy. There really were some great examples of emotional content that I don't remember seeing in the previous stories, and at the same time you were able to keep all of the action and the breakneck speed.
I also want to second the notion that for the story you wanted to tell it was a great idea to split the novel into two threads. Every time you switched over I wanted to stay with the previous section, so it really kept me interested in finding out what would happen next for each group.
As far as the ending goes... unfortunately I'm going to have to agree with some of the others above and say that it did seem a little abrupt to me. I'm trying hard to come up with a reason why I feel this way in order to give you some better criticism but I'm having a hard time with it. The epilogue was fine and it tied everything up well, I think maybe just the part before the epilogue felt like it was missing something. In any case, that's a very minor complaint given how good the book was overall, and especially considering that you're adding another book to the series for me to look forward to.
On the subject of the next book in the series, I have to point out that you wrote in the Author's note that you doubted you would have "The Clone [fill in the blank]" in the title of the next book. Not that I'm complaining of course! Can't wait to read it no matter what the title is.
Congratulations on another incredible story, and thank you for keeping me entertained as usual.
P.S. Freeman was great! Can't say it enough.
It's going to be a clone fill in the blank.
In this case, the blank reads Sedition.
For some reason, everytime I read the title of the Clone books.. I get flashbacks of the Bourne stories.
Only yours are much better.
Jordan, as always you are far too generous. The Science Fiction Book club agrees with you. They released two hardback Harris collections which they titled, The Clone Identity and The Clone Supremacy.
Whoa, wait, really? I only buy hardcovers of my favorite authors, and yours are only in paperback.
I would definitely buy a couple big hardcover omnibus' if they came out.
The Science Fiction Book Club released books 1-3 in one omnibus and 4-6 in another. Last month they released a hardback version of The Clone Redemption as well.
Fantastic! I just looked them up, and I'm glad you pointed it out.
It's a shame that so many books don't sell as hardcover, but I'm sure that's not up to the authors, just like book covers.
You know, I would love to come out in hardback some time, I think that would be exciting.
Since they are so expensive, it's rare that I pick them up brand new, save for a few authors, so that would be exciting to see the entire series in hardcover.
Maybe after you write a few more, eh? :)
Jack Campbell, a.k.a. John Hemry made that jump. I have the same editor at Ace that he has--the lovely and talented Anne.
That was actually one of my last couple purchases. I thoroughly enjoy his books as well.
I hope you see some of the same treatment. It's the whole reason why I refuse to buy an E-reader, the sheer fun of opening a new book!
Most of the Sad Sam's crowd has made the e-reader jump. I'm still paper-bound.
I'd like to think I'll be one of the last people in the world to own real books. There's something about looking at bookcases full.
I realize that in today's world, that all sounds crazy to most people. I will still never get rid of any of my books. Also, if ever there were a chance to go to a book signing, you can't sign a Kindle now can you!
Not necessarily true... I got Shigeru Miyamaoto to sign my Game Boy.
That could be an option. Though over time you may run out of room!
I really have to stop hijacking your post here, I may be scaring the others away.
Jordan, don't sweat it. You're not caring anyone off.
I'm still 95% paper books. I don't have an e-reader, though I have the kindle and apple iBooks app on my phone. There are a couple authors out there that I like, self publishing short stories and novellas in e-format only, so it's nice to be able to access those.
I prefer hardbacks. If books were common in leather bound, with the gold edging.... I'd so go that way. I'm about to get a book themed tattoo for my bday next month.
I'm such a geek!
I don't think "geek" and tattoo go together. Well, maybe if you were getting Bill Gates or Harry Potter tattoos. A Harry Potter lightning bolt on your forehead would be a sure sign of geekdom.
A book themed tattoo? That sounds intriguing! There's nothing wrong with being a geek.. we all read scifi, it comes with the territory :)
I tried to explain to my boyfriend yesterday how awesome our "FedEx an ABC to me" conversation was. He just shook his head and called me geek. At least he thinks it's cute.
I have a friend who is the middle of getting a full sleeve tattoo of A Song of Ice and Fire by GRRM themed.
Maybe we could go into business making ABC dolls.
Are we talking plush dolls? ABC pillow pets? Action figures? I'm picturing a 2' tall stuffed doll. I'd totally get one or two, though I'm not sure they would appeal to a larger market.
If we're talking hugs, you'll need an full-sized plushie.
No bigger than an oversized stuffed bear. Those dang ABC's are funsized!
But I am afraid only JenMo would find them lovable.
Hi Steven. I picked up the series at the release of your 3rd book. I've enjoyed each novel and hope for more. I would ask for something i find lacking in most sci-fi novels... concept art. I'm not sure how adept you are at drawing (i have trouble with stick figures myself.... but give me a drafting table and i'll make you a star ship!) i just love having the facts clear in my mind or seeing how close my imagination came to yours. just a thought....
i finished the book the third day i got it which was when it came out but sadly couldn't comment on it because my Internet was down and now for the comment/s i will be making. i loved the book it was amazing, and the transition from Harris to the Japanese fleet was well played. i was sad however that Illych died but his replacement and his friend were the funnest abc clones you ever wrote. i am confused on the plant that Illych landed on and the structure he was in was that an avatari one help planet or what. Harris as a roman praetorian guard was a nice touch on a history well dead for this time period and the way the admirals died was nice. it seemed to me that ava just lost her mind because of what happened to her students and might go suicidal. freeman by far was the best written character and the whole character change from being a ruthless killing to a 7foot killing machine with a human heart was weird but if you take into consideration that his whole tribe or colony was killed i can see the change. now for the last bit the final battle was interesting but for the shields to do down because of a snow storm was kind of hard to believe but i believed it. and as for them being stranded on earth i dont think so doesnt earth still have the scientfic exploration ships or am i wrong because i thought their were hundreds of them and we only saw if you count the whole books or starting from book number 3 i would say that we only read about 5-6 of them. ps i do not know if this was said on here and the answer was given. oh and i will just end by saying the ending of the book seemed like this would have been the last book with the clones taking over earth the japans es now have a planet to them selves and the humans defeated
Fluke, even a drafting table cannot add to my lacking skills. I once had a guy draw Freeman. He did a nice job.
All excellent points, Amer; but from you I have long since learned to expect nothing but good points.
The scientific fleet is a possibility for future installments, as is the temporary broadcast satellite that was missing from Mars but not necessarily destroyed, and--as E points out--there was no word given about what may or may not have happened to Harris's spy ship.
As soon as the snow started falling I was like, "take that you bastards!" when the shields then failed, i wasn't surprised at all. I thought it was a pretty perfect way to even the odds.
It's funny. There's a guy on Amazon who wrote a pretty good review, but he found that part unbelievable and said that they would have tested for the snow. I wanted to point out that in Hawaii. they imported mongooses to kill the rats in the pineapple fields--only rats are nocturnal and mongooses only come out during the day so they actually doubled the infestation. During Desert Storm the U.S. Army discovered that the helicopters engines got choked by sand. General Motors actually tried to market the Nova in South America as the Nova--in Spanish, No Va means It Doesn't Go. Does this guy really believe that Armies, states, and other organizations do not make mistakes? Most of the guy's other criticisms were pretty valid--though I didn't agree with him about the Stealth Reentry Pods.
I completely agree with you there, and I read that review this morning. I think it's not only that governments do make those kind of testing mistakes, but the UA tending to get cocky after developing the shielded armor, right?
Theoretically, the shields did exactly what they were intended to do, which was shield the user against projectiles, no matter what the "projectiles" were made of. Snow is technically a solid, so I don't see how it wouldn't make sense that it wouldn't affect the shields at all.
Not all science fiction can be 100% correct. It's called fiction for a reason people! I think docking the rating because it isn't all completely realistic, honestly, is a little harsh. We also don't clone humans, but he never mentioned that at all ;)
Overall I thought Doxycycline was very fair. Here's the deal. If you look at past reviews of the first books in the series, there was a guy who gave me a one-star and stopped reading in mid-book because I described stars as twinkling in space. (No kidding!)
I think Doxycycline is right, most readers expect more intelligence out of books than they do out of movies. He was nice enough to credit my writing, which I appreciated.
Now to his complaints--
The SIPs, as pointed out in the book, were so expensive they became impractical and they were developed as volatile transport devices, not bombs. As stated in the book, they only became practical when the entire human race was endangered and over 170 colonies were lost. Also, until that point it was humans fighting humans on planets populated by humans. I don't think any government would spend billions of dollars to develop planet-destroying bombs to use on its own planets.
Next is his point about the armor, which is a fair point--except that it A) Ignores so many historical (and hysterical) mistakes; B) brings up something that comes into play again later--that the U.A. rushed to get the armor out in The Clone Betrayal because it was taken by surprise when Harris captured the self-broadcasting ships. His third and fourth point, I think, show weakness in my work--I was not able to communicate that the entire book took place in a matter or weeks, not giving the U.A. time to build more ships--which they could not build anyways because the clones captured the Golan Dry Docks.
Can't argue about his physics qualms. All I can say is "Good point. I'll try not to make that mistake in the future." Though that will be hard with the maximum speeds as they have appeared in the previous six books. Chalk that down as something I wish he had mentioned in 2005.)
Overall, I thought Doxycycline worked hard to be fair.
Fairer than most, I'll say that. Though it's a well known fact that people manipulate the Amazon rating system pretty badly at times. Though it Redemption has a great rating nonetheless.
I think there were a couple things that you pointed out briefly, that some people are upset didn't get stretched out a bit more, but what can you do, right?
That does bring up a fun thought though. Have you ever thought about putting all of the details, technology, etc, into a separate book? Sort of how David Weber has put a lot of the technical things into his secondary line of Harrington novels (ship specs, weapons, technical info). Maybe a thin-ish novel with some nice drawings. I think a lot of people love that kind of stuff, since it makes the stories and characters feel more "real".
Jordan, I would need to sell five-times more books to justify a book of that sort.
Well, we can all dream can't we? :D
As to Doxycycline, I think he gave me the rating he honestly felt I deserved. I'd love to get all fives, but the man was honest and he gave me things to watch out for in the future. No complaints.
Just finished the book a few minutes ago. Had to wait quite a while until Amazon in Germany could deliver it. What upset me was how rushed the conclusion was. I wish there'd have been more closure. (After getting more and more reason to abhor the UA I was hoping for total desolation of the UA power structure and its leaders.) Would have been nice to learn more about how things went on Terraneau and New Copenhagen. What happened to Ava? I did like her a bit more in this novel. One of the real highlights for me was that finally a good leader for the EME stepped up. The briefing Holman gave (pages 274-278) was brilliant. Had been hoping for something like that for quite some time. Felt like shouting out "yes!" when I read that part.
Despite the end that was less satisfying for me, any book in the clone series is among the top books of the year. Without a doubt one of the best SciFi series out there.
The clones should take over military training and setup some kind of indoctrination that prevents the abuse and misuse of human life as happened in the UA.
Have you considered writing a collection of short stories in the Universe?
Maurice, in truth, I regret the way I ended the book. I have no one to blame but myself on that one. I felt like the battle in the airport had gone on so long and I did not want readers to lose interest, so I just sort of tied it off after that.
From the reader responses, it's obvious I made the wrong decision.
About a collection of short stories--I don't know about that, but I am writing the one-up Harris novels that I discussed in the past. These are set in the Harris universe, but they do not necessarily advance the storyline from first seven books.
Wow I'm late to the party, took me a lot longer to actually sit down and read than I thought it would.
I enjoyed the book. The Seal/Japanese portions of the book really took the take cake for me. The Boyd clones just seem to posses a certain human element that even the natural borns don't. If I had one knock on these books it would be the darker "everyone sucks" tone they took on. I guess I just like more of cheery idea of the future where the good guys are clearly the good guys. In these books everyone hates everyone and there is nary a good dead. In reality it probably is the more realistic view; but I like me some good old fashioned Roddenberry-esque camaraderie.
The ending to this book was pretty rushed, but it didn't bother me too much. You got to the point and wrapped up what needed to be wrapped up. I hate it when I'm reading a book and I can tell that the story is clearly wrapped up but there is still like 30 pages of fluff left.
Josh, you and my other friends have been very forgiving about the ending but the message is clear--I NEED TO TAKE A LITTLE MORE TIME. Same thing happened at the end of The Clone Elite.
I mean I really didn't have a problem with it being so quick there at the end. The only knock I have about the ending is that the snow killing their shields right on cue seemed a bit deus ex machina.
The snow has hit very mixed reviews with a lot of readers who liked it and many who thought it was too much of a deus ex or not believable.
Since I started hinting at that flaw in Betrayal and specified the problem in Empire, I feel good about not springing it on readers. Still, it was a bit on the fortuitous side.
Post a Comment