Tony Hisgett's Reviews > Forsaken Commander

At the start it seemed a decent story, but I kept getting the feeling that the author was manipulating incidents in ways that just felt 'off' and shouldn’t be happening in this way. This wasn't a major problem but after this occurred several times I began to have doubts about the whole book.
Just one example of a minor incident;
(view spoiler)[Carter and Carina were attacked in a bar by 5 thugs, after putting them all down, some with serious injuries from their own weapons, the police arrive. They order everybody to freeze, at which point the 5 thugs jump up and run away. At this point Carter identifies himself as a Union Officer and starts to pursue the attackers, the police then shoot him. To many readers this might not be a problem, but it didn't feel right to me.
It's clear that at that point the author doesn't want the attackers to be identified, but it felt a very clumsy way of manipulating the story
(hide spoiler)]

Unfortunately it didn’t get any better when we meet the ‘Grand Vizier’, a definite caricature of an evil villain, it seemed to be turning into a teenage Comic Book.

The story is disaster driven, every action by Carter hits a problem whether its giant lizards or the Grand Vizier turning up at the absolute wrong moment. The author seems to think that all that matters in a Space Opera is continuous over-the-top action, whether it makes any sense or not. It's a very formulaic way to construct a story and I wrongly assumed it was probably the author's first full length novel.
This really is Comic Book Science Fiction, but I can see why it appeals to fans of things like ‘Marvel Movies’. Perhaps I have read too many old school SciFi books.

If possible I would have given 1.5 stars.