Engines of Dawn

by Paul Cook

Book Overview

********"A lot of contemporary SF satisfies but doesn't excite. Cook's latest delivers everything you could want" -Science Fiction Chronicle.******** The great engines of the Enamorati have enabled... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451457366
• ISBN13: 9780451457363
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

A star-borne University, with an alien race and religious infighting.Hardly seems like the best premise for an action novel. You'd expect a bit more of a politicial thriller.Fortunately, this is a rocking action novel. The type is a bit bigger than normal, so you can easily zip through this book. The fact that it is clearly written, and flows well from event to event only heightens the speed.The downside is that reading as quickly as I did, I sometimes got a bit confused on which faction was in favor of what. Luckily, the alliances were straightforward enough, until they weren't. And I had sorted out the main factions by then.The only downside, if this is a downside, is that the main character is obsessed with female breasts. Not that this is a bad thing, but having a detailed analysis of that feature of each female character for the first 50 or so pages did begin to wear. Luckily, by that point, things were happening, so it became a non-topic until the denoument.It seems that some of the other reviewers were not taking into account the perspective of the novel while reading. While the political infighting seems minor next to the threat to humanity from the Enamorati Compact, no one outside of a half dozen characters fully understands the threat, and so it does not influence their actions. This is actually a plus to the novel, as agendas are advanced in ignorance. Only the reader can understand how the big picture fits together - and that knowledge is incomplete.Of course, as befits a good action novel, the good guys win, the bad guys get beaten for being stupid and lose to boot. Girl beds boy and all are happy.Obviously, this is not a novel that plumbs deep intellectual depths. It is suprisingly well thought out for a "simple action novel", and represents some of the best entertaining science fiction that one can read.Enough fluff for entertainment, and enough meat for thinking. A good balance, and a book and author destined for my must read chart.

Entertaining

Ok, so the plot has some holes you could drive a space cruiser through, and the delivery is a bit chaotic. Still, I cannot in conscience give this book anything less than five stars. It's basic _premise_ is sound, and the story engaging.What really does for me in this book is seeing man face a mortal enemy, who could well turn into the species nemesis, and having as main obstacle their own political infighting and quest for power. _That_ is rendered perfectly in this book. Also, I must admit that the university background setting is familiar and comfortable to me. It's not every time humanity is saved in a university campus, and very rarely as convincingly as in this book. :-)If you are put off by plot holes, stay away from this one. If the way personal agendas and egos can get in the way of our own good does it for you, though, this book is for you.

Great Plot and Great SciFi

This is really an excellent novel. I had never read anything by this author, little wonder since I find nothing else by him in the catalog. The writing is clean and the plot moves well. I thought the book was fair in the first few chapters. After further reading I thought the book was pretty good. By the time I got to the last few chapters I was tense and anxious to see the conclusion in a way that I have not been in quite a while. I am eagerly looking forward to more works by this very talented author.

Another good book by Paul Cook

I thoroughly enjoyed Engines of Dawn. It has a good plot and a revolutionary spirit that keeps the story moving at a good pace. Once everything started coming together the story really grabbed my interest and didn't let go til the end. And the end is phenomenal. I really liked the ending and I really liked the characters. I work in a technical field and these charcters are true-to-life to me. Parts of the story are funny because the characters do seem so real. I have my favorite characters like Holcombe, Rausch and Vees but all the characters are good. His other book Fortress on the Sun is also good. It has a more complicated plot and a 'can-do' spirt that really ignites the story and keeps its burning til the end. Enjoy.

Highly Recommended, Entertaining Read.

Paul Cooks's novels are always entertaining, with Engines of Dawn easily his best. It most resembles his earlier novel, Halo, for its adventure and its inspired moments of humor. Highly recommended.