Queen of Blades (Starcraft)

Surprisingly good! I'm a SC fan to the core, but even I never expected to give anything more than 3 stars to a video game-inspired novel; let's be honest, they're just not usually that good.The writing here is incredibly accessible (yes, `low brow'), but the descriptions are vivid and enjoyable and, most refreshingly of all, the characters are very complex, offering a depth that owes as much to the original creative dev. work at Blizzard as to Rosenberg's writing. These characters are the real driving force of the book, carrying the load of sometimes cheesey dialogue and fairly predictable plot movements.Still, for any fan of the Starcraft universe this book will, I think, be impressive, and I for one am glad to see the Blizzard novels showing they can be more than B sci-fi, only appealing to rabid fanboys.

This is a totally epic story, possibly the best of all StarCraft stories. It's titled Queen of Blades, and one could expect it to center on, describe and develop the personality of Kerrigan herself - and I find it to be false. The real deal is the description of how Raynor met and slowly befriended the Protoss, and how Tassadar changed himself from orthodox Conclave's follower to one of the greatest warriors in the history of the Universe, the Twilight Protoss, the Adun Reborn!If you're interested in the Protoss backstory, this is a must-read. The beggining might not feel too interesting, as it's centered on meeting the Zerg and the relations between Raynor and Kerrigan - but after the Protoss appear it becomes more and more awesome.

Starcraft fans seem to have two opinions about this book: either it sucks, or it rocks. I find myself in the middle--I'll try to explain what parts were good, and which were boring and really weird, at least for me (you need to know a tad bit about the Stacraft storyline, though, plus, there are some SPOILERS ahead).So, the beginning is awesome, it's cool, has a lot of details and explains how Raynor got to Char at the beginning of the Zerg campaing in the Starcraft game. It also tells us a lot about how Jimmy has been striving to cope with the loss of Kerrigan since the end of the Terran campaing. I found this part, up until Raynor gets stranded on Char and all, to be really interesting and captivating--specially the parts that describe Raynor's new found role as a leader. Yeah, it was cool.Let it be known, however, the book should've ended there, while it still could. Seriously.The rest, up until the very final battle (which, apparently takes place in the 'Eye for an Eye' scenario from the Zerg Campaign), is extremely tedious and boring, and quite weird. I mean, just plain weird.Let me explain: it felt like an endless tale of how Jimmy runs around 're-living' every dialogue that happened in the game, line by line, whith some minor changes to the story and some added encounters, while spying the elusive Protoss and the Zerg on Char.Seriously, that's all he does for almost every page.He goes around, spying on both Protoss and Zerg, watching how they fight, how the Protoss run away, hide, fight again, run away, hide, fight again, and so on and so on--whith Jimmy following all the way, trying to convince the Protoss to ally him against the Zerg and to get him and his men out of Char.He sometimes talks to Tassadar, and has some dreams about Kerrigan (they have a psychic link of sorts, which is explained later in the book)-- but it was more like a National Geographic documentary than anything else. A really boring one.Now, don't get me wrong, the book obviously has some new info and added storyline, but being sincere, it wasn't that much nor that good.I just felt like getting this huge amount of filler and game scenes that I already knew all about. Sure, I appreciated the extra info and all, but again, it wasn't that interesting nor important.Anyways, after 12 chapters of spying and chasing (there are 20 in total, plus the epilogue; the first 4 are cool, the last 4 are 'normal'--the rest pretty much felt like filler), Jimmy finally finds the Protoss and asks them to help him so he can help them against the Zerg. From here on we are given this weak clichéd subplot of how the Terrans befriend the Protoss and how Tassadar, Zeratul and Jimmy become Super Friends.Next we have a huge final battle between our three Musketeers and Kerrigan, which, according to the book, ends in a draw or something--with Kerrigan saying something like: 'I'll be back!' and Zeratul replying: 'We'll se about that'--I mean, come on, what was that?--And the epilogue is so corny.Everyone finally appears (this roughly takes place in the fourth scenario of the Protoss campaing): Aldaris, Artanis (who apparently is 'you' in the Protoss campaign), and even the Hyperion, Raynor's capital ship, which had to leave Char because the Zerg were attacking it, the reason why Jimmy and his men are stranded there in the first place--but seriously, all in the final chapter? Damn, that's what I call a coincidense; a pretty weak constructed coincidense.It was more like they wanted to end the book as soon as possible.And that's it. That's basically what happens.So, in conclusion, it isn't a horrible Stacraft book, I mean, it isn't Shadow of the Xel'Naga, but it isn't that good either--plus, the writing isn't something to die for. It has a couple of interesting stuff and expands a lot about Jimmy's relationship with Tassadar, Zeratul and Kerrigan (maybe the only worthwhile aspect of this book), but it's nothing really important to the general storyline--I mean, it felt that way for me.Personally, when I finished the book, it felt nice to have read it, but only because it was a book about Starcraft. The cold reality was I was left with this weird void, like, I read the whole book and yet learned nothing really imporant, nothing that I didn't already know thanks to other sources--so, yeah, it felt like an apparent waste of time. Not a total waste of time, mind you, but it was very close to be one.So, yeah, I recommend it--but you have been warned!

This book predates Starcraft 2, and is based on events in the first Starcraft game and in the Brood War expansion. The author sticks to the plot elements as he should (I suspect he was handed an outline and told to follow it, then watched about 30 minutes of the game over a Blizzard employee's shoulder), but the writing, characters, plot, and pacing are all dull and there are occasional factual errors (what does the author imagine a Mutalisk *is*!?) that strongly distract from the story.Okay, the writing isn't TERRIBLE. It's not particularly engaging, and none of the people involved really feel like people, but that's par for the course with both tie-in-writing and with, well, male-written heroic military SF.It's just phoned-in.The author has some solid understanding of the overall plot he's expanding on. He talks about how Raynor punched Duke, left Mensk, and how he met Kerrigan. We get the names of zerg types namedropped. Clearly, the author paid some attention when he read the brief of what happened during the game, and maybe he watched someone play through some of the dramatic scenes and through one or two levels. Still, your reality may be broken--repeatedly--when you encounter mutalisks attacking with spikes and claws as the heroes make their way through a tunnel only to find several cerebrates surrounding a breeding pool that is guarded by a large gate with a several-foot-in-diameter eye.A few factual error distractions are forgivable if the characters have depth, or if the story is engaging, or if the whole thing is just a lot of fun/drama/SOMETHING. This book, however, is both a slog AND fluff. It's sincerely a challenge for me to keep it in front of my face, and where I normally devour a fluff book in one sitting, I've had three sittings just to make it through the first hundred pages.So, well, it's no worse than expected for the licensed-property-novelization category. Who knows, maybe the next four hundred pages will redeem the first hundred. If I make it that far and they do, I'll come back and edit this.tl;dr: If you're a fanatic, what the heck; it's cheap. If you want something entertaining, maybe go back and play some of the game.edit: Okay, the second half of this book was significantly better, and made me want to encounter a short (reworking of this novel as a series of Starcraft maps. It's still not very good, but I'm upping my review to three stars. I actually enjoyed most of the last hundred pages (the story's less than 400 pages long.)

After reading the first few books in the starcraft series I was eager to read this book. The book follows the first games story of how Kerrigan was betrayed by Mengsk and turned into one of the Zerg, covered in the Zerg campaign in the game.So far the book has been a bit of a disappointment. The authors handling of the characters is a little poor and portrays many of them differently than in the game and a lot of the original story elements the author has added are a little hard to beleive and don't quite suit the world that the games helped to create.Like most novels based on a game, the author contradicts the storyline of the game, normally an author only doe this slightly or when he/she needs to change the story to incorporate some new element they have added to the novel, but sadly this book contains lots of contradictions that seem unnecessary. Such as changing the location (from the surface of Char in the game to deep underground in a loosely guarded tunnel system beneath Char) and some of the events leading to Raynor's attempted rescue of Kerrigan while she was in her chrysalis. Another strange element of the story was Raynor's continued telepathic link with Kerrigan, even after she has awoken from her crysalis. This allowed him to 'see' through her eyes whenever he simply shuts his own. There is also a scene where Kerrigan can now apparently stop bullets in mid air and turn them around back at those who fired them. I could list many more examples of continuity errors and bizarre elements the author has chosen to use in the book.Overall a very disappointing read, especially given the events the book covers, I gave up on the book 2/3 of the way through. Maybe better suited for die hard fans of the game, but definite not as good as some of the previous novels.

Recommended, very well written book and indeed the entire series is.

Excellent product.

average

A really interesting story for any starcraft fan!