Hex

April 18, 2011
Fans of action-driven space opera will enjoy Steele's eighth Coyote novel (after 2010's Coyote Destiny). By the 24th century C.E., humankind has mastered interstellar travel, and colonists have formed the Coyote Federation and joined the Talus, an interstellar association. The danui, powerful intelligent beings who resemble spiders, offer Coyote the use of a habitable planet in their home system, so starship captain Andromeda Carson and her estranged son, Sean, a member of the Corps of Exploration, head over to check the place out. When they discover that the danui have destroyed the promised planet to create an enormous sphere tiled with billions of hexagons and enclosing the danui homeworld, mother and son must set aside their differences to save their mission and themselves. The writing is crisp, and Steele, as always, leaves readers wanting to learn more about the worlds he's created.

May 1, 2011

Addition to Steele's interstellar colonization saga (Coyote Destiny, 2010, etc.) wherein Earth is kaput, and human civilization thrives on the remote planet Coyote.

In an awfully long first hundred pages, we learn that humans and various alien races cooperate peaceably in the Talus, a sort of galactic club, and that space marine Sean Carson hates his starship captain mother Andromeda for abandoning Sean's father and lying to him about it. Then one of the alien races, the mysterious danui, announce that they have a planet available for humans to colonize. In due course an expedition departs from Coyote—no prizes for guessing who is aboard—for the planet, but when they arrive they find, instead of a planet, a colossal Dyson sphere composed of billions of hexagons arranged in a spherical shell around a central sun, each hexagon with environments suitable for life, both human and alien. There's evidence that the intricately constructed and lovingly described Hex has already been visited and perhaps occupied by several of the Talus races. However, instead of waiting for instructions, or attempting to understand what's going on, Sean, Andromeda and company begin to explore, blundering about like adolescents, making impulsive, ill-informed and often stupid decisions. There are a few tense moments and some issues are resolved, but sense of wonder there is none.

Dull and annoying.

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