Dark Mind (Star Carrier, #7) by Ian Douglas
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Enjoyable read
2425. The civil war between the United States of North America and the Pan-European Confederation is over. But before a new era of peace on Earth can begin, humankind must martial its interstellar forces as one fleet to engage in a war against an alien entity in Omega Centauri. Without provocation, it destroyed a Confederation science facility inhabited by 12,000 people, and it must be neutralized before it sets its sights on Earth.
Admiral Trevor “Sandy” Gray of the USNA star carrier America has his own mission. The enigmatic AI known as Konstantin has convinced him that humanity’s only chance for survival is technology found in a distant star system. Now, Gray must disobey orders as well as locate and create a weapon capable of defeating a living sphere the size of a small planet…
I find it difficult to rate and review this book. Overall I found it quite enjoyable to read, enough for a four star rating, but I also got the feeling that the book series is not progressing as I would have liked and has perhaps even outstayed it’s welcome a wee bit.
The first books were rather straightforward space adventure pitting humans against a technologically superior foe. Great action, technically and scientifically sound, great characters and generally well written.
In the latest book you sometimes get the feeling that the author is struggling to invent more and more mysterious and complicated enemies and plots. The enemies are everything from intelligent bacteria to huge planet sized brains. The action is generally fairly one sided where the various alien entities beat the crap out of the humans and any victories for the home team is not won by superior tactics and military prowess but by various complicated schemes using things the humans do not really fully understand.
In addition to this little gripe of mine the author spends a lot of time wandering out into technological and, sometimes, philosophical musings. It is difficult for me to complain about this since I generally like science fiction that has a solid foundation in science but you can have too much of everything. In this book I felt like there was just too much info-dumping going on. It was like a musical where the plot is interrupted by some song and dance every so often except in the book it was interrupted by these long blobs of text which did not really move the plot forward.
However, despite this I quite enjoyed the book. It could have been better as far as I am concerned but it is still a good and well written book.
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