Reviews and Comments

I wanted to like this book. I mean it has all I love about a good story. A cyberpunkish theme, space travel, robots explosions.. So how could I not love it?

Well, it lacks a good story, where I'd expect descriptions about life in this dystopia I find mostly action sequences and gore. Where I'd like to see a believable protagonist, I find an extremely flat character. Starting with the boring and overused amnesia plot device (seriously, there are better ways to create suspense), going to the action superhero who is faster, smarter and angrier than everyone else, who turns out to be a former autistic super scientist who refactoring himself, who also created an super ai, which surprise now is in his head making him to a super cyborg hacker... Gimme a break. I'd have preferred if the character was less super über cyber something, but instead would have flaws, doubts, weaknesses, thoughts, dreams and motivations which develop through out the story.
The bad guys aren't much better. The token woman former love interest doctor he's dragging along doesn't save it either.
The second half of the book I had push myself hard to keep reading, simply because I was completely unable to relate in any way with the characters or story.

If you enjoy pointless orgies of picturesque violence as a read you might be able to find some entertainment in this book. I most certainly did not

Warning: this review is full of spoilers.

The title of this book could easy have been "wizards and spaceships" cause in the end, that's the theme.
Sadly the author went quite far overboard with this theme so the reader does end up with wizards who wipe out several spaceships within seconds.. And there's the ultimate problem of the story. If your main character is ultimately powerful and can't be stopped it gets boring. Every bit of suspense gets lost when you as a reader have no reason at all to doubt the protagonists ability to overcome what ever the problem at hand is.

The books first pages read great. An intelligence officer in a fleet belonging to an empire gets send on a suicide mission, gets secret additional orders by the emperor and discovers mind blocks around some of his memories.
Shortly before he leaves he also learns that there is psi abilities and that he apparently can shield against them.

Now the book seems to pick up speed and also completely shifts from the atmosphere of a rather dark setting to complete ridiculousness..
In space they get attacked by hallucinations, and the protagonist actually finds out.
Once their landed they get attacked by little green men (wtf) and people with staffs wands and shields that block weapons. The protagonist manages to beat down someone carrying a wand, and then uses it.. (while the elite soldiers with him didn't manage to do much).
He and his soldiers lose the fight, but he gets saved by some psi soldiers of the Empire. They flee together through a Stargate and end up in the lair of a grandmaster wizard, who explains that the protagonist and his band of psi soldiers are wizards and the enemy are sorcerers. He gives them a few books to read, and makes them a council of wizards for their world's. Back in their realm they meet the emperor, who knew all along, grants them freedom makes them allies and gives the protagonist, now a grand master wizard himself, a powerful ship.
The wizards meet up with the fleet again and approach a final space battle. As it turns out, the captain of the flagship is a strategic genius, and the protagonist has learned of this captains strategies in school.
During the battle the protagonist then kills various sorcerers, then some spaceships, and some more sorcerers - while doing so he never seems in any kind of trouble. In the end wizards and spaceships are used to kill the sorcerers grand master..

I don't know maybe it's just me but a mix of a really weird story with an hero for whom everything seems to always workout fine just doesn't work. It's lacking suspense. And that's what you get if you put overly powerful Magic into sci-fi

I'm quite happy that I didn't read the reviews before I read the book.

I've read quite a few of the other books of the author, so when I read the synopsis I thought "so a basic premise like sliders (TV series) or the long earth (baxter+Pratchett) just painted darker, and more dirty" and I wasn't disappointed.
While the main plot didn't feel as thoroughly planned as the one in stealing light (and the rest of the series) it still had some nice twists and made a good read.
The idea behind the setting is great, and there are some interesting characters in there. I can definitely recommend this book and hope for a sequel.