Christian Leonard Quale reviewed Who Takes No Risk by Ryk Brown
Quite good, but takes no risks
I came back to this book after taking a bit of a book-reading-break where much of my reading time has been consumed by news and magazines. So what better way to return than to dive into the familiar world of the Frontiers Saga?
“Who Takes no Risk” takes, or rather continues to take, a turn toward the futile and sad. There’s a darker, more desperate, atmosphere hanging over this book than what has been the norm so far, and even though we still get a fair share of plot-powered improbable successes, the feeling of “this is a series where things will generally go well” is being gradually dismantled. Which is a good thing.
There’s also a couple of really great sub-plots in this book, and it’s almost a bit of a pity that they’re bundled in with such a substantive main plot. They don’t exactly serve to add much levity, …
I came back to this book after taking a bit of a book-reading-break where much of my reading time has been consumed by news and magazines. So what better way to return than to dive into the familiar world of the Frontiers Saga?
“Who Takes no Risk” takes, or rather continues to take, a turn toward the futile and sad. There’s a darker, more desperate, atmosphere hanging over this book than what has been the norm so far, and even though we still get a fair share of plot-powered improbable successes, the feeling of “this is a series where things will generally go well” is being gradually dismantled. Which is a good thing.
There’s also a couple of really great sub-plots in this book, and it’s almost a bit of a pity that they’re bundled in with such a substantive main plot. They don’t exactly serve to add much levity, but I found the sub-plots more emotionally engaging than the main plot. They gave me time to digest what was happening, rather than being a full-on series of events that were thrown at me.
This book has flaws. Some, if not all, of the main set pieces feel a bit dragged out, and once it’s obvious what is going to happen, it takes too long for it to actually happen. But while this series took the leap from being a joyously superficial, feel-good space opera to a more emotionally absorbing story many, many, books ago - this book definitely serves to affirm that fact.
