I recently asked my Facebook friends for recommendations on something space opera-y to read. At random, I picked one, read the excerpt on Amazon, and decided to buy it.

While the excerpt left me wanting more, I’m having trouble getting through the book. Every time I start to really care about the characters, there’s another space battle at relativistic speeds. Incoming enemy, ten minutes ago. Get the damned slow-poke repair ship to out of the range of battle. [yawn] Wade through all sorts of detail in the commander’s head. [yawn] Communicate with fleet. Commander thinks about what’s going on, what the enemy might do, what his ships are doing, what the enemy ships are doing.  It’s all very accurate, relativistically-speaking. [snore]

I can picture science geeks getting into this, but geez. Can’t we talk about the characters now? Sort out how they relate to one another? Stomp on a mutinous captain’s tail, or something? Just when I think the commander is going to start dealing with the morale issue, there’s (yep) another space battle. But they had weeks in hyperspace to do plot and character development. Wah!

It just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its excerpt.