I don't think this book can be considered a masterpiece of SF,but it's certainly a good and involving book,and I think it's difficult to dislike it.Good reading

This was the best of the crisis of empire series, a standalone novel set in the same universe as the rest of the series. Although there are some tieins to the rest of the series this can be enjoyed on its own and conclusion does not affect the rest of the series. The main character, Al Spencer is a navel intellignce officer who has just had his life ruined by the whims of the empire. He is picked up out of the gutter by the Kona Tatsu (secret police), cleaned up, given a small task force and sent to a world where KT agents keep disappearing. The novel deals with the problems of understanding and dealing with an Artificial Life form (AI) while at the same time trying to deal with his own problems. One of the books stregenths is the personality built into the AI. Although enormously powerful it has its own weakness and gaps in understanding. The book takes a little while to develop its characters and situation but by a third of the way through it is hard to put down. Highly reccomended

Unfortunately the other 200+ pages make it a long and boring read.

I first encountered Roger MacBride Allen when I read 'Allies and Aliens' some years back. It was a great read and since that time I've often looked for other titles by him when browsing for books. When I spotted 'The Depths of Time' (henceforth TDOT) several months back, I picked it up immediately. It was very disappointing -- if you haven't read the reviews on that book, I recommend doing so before you buy this one (or buying TDOT if it's not too late). That novel had all of the same problems that this one does -- way too many pages for the storyline and the interest level is all or nothing. Both are largely filled with highly detailed and very uninteresting fluff, alleviated every once in a while by a few pages where something actually happens. Both spend time detailing information about politics and conspirators -- which never end up connecting back with the storyline.

The obvious question then becomes -- if I was so disappointed with volume one -- why get volume two? I bought this book for two reasons. First -- TDOT had such an incomplete and unsatisfying ending that I really wanted to find out what the final resolution was going to be -- I *hate* not knowing the ending to a story. Second -- I had enjoyed my first MacBride experience with 'Allies and Aliens' so much that I was hoping that TDOT was simply a fluke and that with the storyline now set up, the follow-on book would be considerably more interesting and loose ends from the first book would be neatly connected. I was very wrong. 'The Ocean of Years' is, if anything, even more long-winded and boring than TDOT. The ending is, if anything, even more unsatisfying and loose ends have expanded geometrically. However -- as much as I hate not finishing all the books in a trilogy -- I won't be purchasing the third book: 'The Shores of Tomorrow'.

Both books (and probably the third as well) should have been massively trimmed and either released all as a single volume or at the most as a duology. The basic concepts are interesting, the universe believable, but there's simply not enough story for the amount of pages being used to tell it.

In the far distant future, mankind has been able to terraform whole planets so that humans could colonize them. Oskar DeSilvo is credited as the genius who brought this process about but Anton Koffield declares that the terraforming project is breaking down and if they don't evacuate the planet millions will die.

Although the authorities have proof that DeSilvo is still alive and has technologies that will save mankind, the authorities want proof that the terraforming project is imperfect. Koffield and his associates travel through a time wormhole one hundred years in the past to locate DeSilvo, get the technology, including the FTL drive and save the future. Koffield also wants vengeance on the man who destroyed his career.

THE OCEAN OF YEARS is high tech science fiction at its very best. The time travel operation, intricate to the story line, is both easy to understand and makes sense even if one is not a quantum physicist. The hero is a driven man, whom seems to place honor above all else, making him the implacable enemy of the antagonist. Yet it is his thirst for vengeance that ultimately leaves readers to wonder whether humanity will survive (at least this novel). Fans of Arthur C. Clarke will love this book.

Harriet Klausner

Picking up where "The Depths of Time" left off, "The Ocean of Years" forms the second part of Allen's "Chronicles of Solace" and sends Admiral Koffield and the crew of the Dom Pedro IV hurrying back to the Solar System to find word of Oskar deSilvo's whereabouts.

Allen's universe here revolves around an Earth and its colonies linked together by a series of timeshaft wormholes: that is, a series of fixed-distance wormholes through time that allow ships (none of which are capable of faster-than-light travel) to objectively experience a hundred-plus year trip through time in a subjective period of days or weeks. The concept is a bit complex (requiring a chart and full-page explanation at the start of each book), but comes off as oddly plausible once you think through the myriad implications of the system - which Allen seems to do well.

In this trilogy, outer terraformed colonies are beginning to die and the only answers as to why are linked with their terraformer - Oskar deSilvo. A man thought dead halfway through the first book, he is hiding in an undisclosed location having provided, essentially, a maze for the crew of the Dom Pedro IV to run to find him. Taking them the libraries orbiting Neptune to Earth to the long-ruined, fungally-overgrown Mars, the book is essentially a series of mysteries laid out and solved by the crew in their attempt to not only find out where deSilvo is, but what implications his pre-hibernation discoveries have for the worlds colonized by Earth.

While this book makes an excellent middle chapter in the trilogy - building on the first one and naturally extrapolating much higher stakes for the third, it does suffer from a few small problems. One is that it's virtually impossible to understand if you haven't read "The Depths of Time". While he tries to being new readers up to speed, he does so over the first hundred or so pages of the book, creating a bit of a jumble in terms of the action occurring. I found even having read the first book six or nine months ago, I was getting lost having forgotten many of the main details. Likewise, his pacing occasionally suffers from unpredictable stutters. Stylistically, it lags or surges forward at odd times. There were parts in the middle - and near the end that dragged by as you waited for characters to move on to the next key. In the same way, occasional pieces of the puzzle were laid out only to be immediately solved by the characters - not giving the reader a chance to try to stay one jump ahead of the mystery.

Nonetheless, though, this is still an outstanding book. His universe is based on a novel idea and is well extrapolated from that point. The shadowy, background villains stay suitably shadowy and a good sense of paranoia slowly infuses the book. If you read - and enjoyed - "The Depths of Time", definitely give this one ago (after having, perhaps, flipped through the first again). If not, go back and pick up "The Depths of Time"; it's worth the read.

First of all, to all you people complaining about the authors writting skills, if you pick up a star wars book and expect a classic piece of literature, I can tell you right now, put it down and go read catcher in the rye. You don't read SW books for the writing, you read them for the plot, the story, the action. So what if Allen writes like he failed English 101, its STAR WARS. I must admit, though, this book was pretty bad, even for a star wars book. First of all, I must have re-read the ending about twenty times, and I still don't really get who the bad guys were and why they did all the nasty stuff that they did. And where are the rest of the Jedi? The academy's been around for what, seven years? And there's not a single jedi on hand to bail out the poor new republic except for Luke, and Mara if you even count her as a Jedi at this point. Another thing, even though I like the fact that Allen brought the Solo kids into the story, he really overdid it with Anakin. This seven year old kid is made out to be some sort of superhero, Luke cubed, I mean come on. Like that's remotley realistic, even for the Star Wars Universe. The one aspect of the story that I can find no fault with was Q9. He was just hilarius, and I wish he could replace R2-D2. The idea of centerpoint station and it's origins was interesting. I wish it were more developed in later books. The best thing about this books was it's length. Unlike Timothy Zahn and Barbara Hambly, Allen didn't always say in a hundred words what he could have said in ten. The plot was engaging enough to keep me reading, and that's all I really ask for in a Star Wars book.

I just had to review this one because for one thing I've reviewed the first two and, for another, this is the best of the trilogy. It's not Hugo material or anything, but hey, it's Star Wars! We read them because the films entertained us and we hope the books will too. Well, this one delivers on that.

The action picked up in the second book, and really comes to a head in this one. What seemed to start as a small potatoes bid for independence (or non-interference, as is more the case here) now takes on higher stakes when millions of lives are threatened by the Starbuster superweapon. The superweapon is always a tried and true element in Star Wars, even if a bit overdone, but it's still fun. You get to see some really good scenes with Mara Jade and Leia having to work together, and there's more of the Bakurans in this one, too (enjoy it while you can, it's the last book to date that they show up in). But the best part of the book is that the major conflict is resolved in an epic space battle, something we really do see far too little of in Star Wars, especially ones written as well as this one was.

If you felt you had to plod through the first two books (which was almost undoubtedly the case for the first book if not the second) then you'll be glad you make it this far to see the payoff. Roger MacBride Allen actually gave us a decent trilogy. The best part of it was that there was NO EMPIRE. I get tired of the Comeback Kings popping up all the time. My regards to the author for giving us a break.

This book has eveything you need to make a good Star Wars book. We have all of our favorite characters, plus some new ones. Mara Jade teams up with Leia of all people. Not to mention, Han and Leia's kids begin to develop distict personalities. If you like C-3PO, well, this is his best book. We have very funny scenes with the worst combination of characters that any author could think of: C-3PO and Lando, with Lando having to admit that he needs Threepio there. Ouch! One of my personal favorite parts is at the very beginning. Han Solo finds himself trying to safely land a ship on the surface of a possibly hostile planet, with an agoraphobic Selonian in command. This is a great book, and you won't be able to put it down once you read the first page.

The most important thing I can tell you about this novel is that it doesn't end with any sort of resolution. After the initial confrontation that maroons the Koffield character, the author piles mystery upon mystery and main characters unravel almost none of it. They were _handed_ some answers at the end of the story in a most unsatisfactory fashion. I nearly hurled the book across the room in frustration. After reading the pitiful attempt at resolution, I was forced to conclude that the whole purpose of this book, all 400+ pages, was to set the reader up for the next book in the series. I don't mind a book being part of a series if each book in the series is worth reading on its own. After 200 pages I realized that the author had run out of story. This leaves the next 200 pages to bore you to tears.

The story started briskly, with a conflict at one of the wormholes. There was darned good action and suspense, and characters with believable motivations. The description of the wormhole transport system, particularly the confusing use of the terms "uptime" and "downtime" was the main flaw in this part of the story. Once I learned to ignore the terms and guess what was going on by context, I had no problem getting into the story.

But once Koffield is marooned in the future, the story just dies. Koffield is converted from a military captain to an academian, and academians other than Indiana Jones just don't make for exciting reading. Despite the misleading title and back cover, time travel plays almost no part in the story after the first (and most exciting) part of the novel. There is an interesting puzzle to be solved with regard to the attack on the wormhole but Koffield doesn't solve it and worse, makes no visible attempt in the novel to solve it. No one solves it. The main questions about the attack are largely left unanswered at story's end.

For some reason, the story turns to the problems of terraforming, of all things. This combined with Koffield's boring inactivity and the drawn out revelation of what little Koffield has discovered made the rest of the novel tiresome to read. I felt sorry for Koffield, but I never really liked him or cared what happened to him. What I really wanted from this story and what Allen failed to deliver was a resolution to the puzzle presented in the first part of the novel. The characters failed to make any progress toward solving that mystery and that made them all irrelevant to me.

What Allen did do well in this novel is develop an interesting space-faring society with its Chronological Police and its wormhole transport system and its attempts at terraforming barren worlds to make them habitable. The hard-sf elements of this novel are what save it from being a complete waste of time.

My advice to potential buyers: wait until Allen publishes all the books of this series, read the reviews of all of them and buy the books as a set if you're still interested. Allen has a long way to go to prove that this series is worth your time and money.

If you want to read a hard-sf novel where time travel is front and center, and where things get resolved at the end, try Timemaster by Robert L. Forward.

The Corellian trilogy is one of Allen's best known works, but as it turns out, it's not Allen's best. With a Star Wars universe, Allen can ride on a ready made fan base and characters. "Depths of Time" is an example of Allen creating a non-Star Wars universe that is complex, believable, and open-ended. The blending of social science, mystery, and hard science fiction is a good mix. The central device is time travel, but the book effectively moves us along at a real time pace to unfold a centuries old canvas. Not an easy thing to pull off, but Allen keeps the reader balanced between the backdrop of an entire universe in crisis and the fate of just one man. I believe the mark of good science fiction is when the "sci-fi" serves to support great characters, and Allen doesn't disappoint. Fans used to Allen's action writing may be surprised when the opening ship battles evolve into the personal struggles of Anton Koffield, but the shift is still compelling. Allen coaxes you into Koffield's life with the familiarity of a good space opera, but carries you with real human crises and the mysteries that grow from them. As a character, Koffield still bears some of the two-dimensional aspects plaguing most of Allen's Star Wars influenced writing, but Koffield's no stereotype. It also looks like Allen is wisely holding back more on Koffield's psyche for the sequel. No matter; what's left unexplained is just as rewarding as what the reader is allowed to uncover. No ready made marketable endings and plot twists either. It's always a pleasure to read a story not disguised as a promo for a movie script. Thank Allen's stars it looks like the beginning of a thoughtful and original space trilogy. Wormhole or no wormhole, it will be worth taking the time to see how it all turns out.

I picked up this book because I saw that it was written by Roger MacBride Allen. I liked his writing in the Star Wars Universe so I figured I couldn't go wrong it picking up the book. Well, I was right but I should have waited for all the books to be out.

Like the previous reviewer said, "starts fast, runs out of gas, coasts, then... no resolution!" Allen reels you in the beginning but then kind of gets lost in the middle, in effect losing you as well. He then reels you back in, only to end the book abruptly with no resolution for the characters or the reader. Although this may seem like a bad thing, I personally think it was intentional. Since the book seems to be the first in a set or series.

That aside, I did enjoy the book. Depths of Time is enjoyable if you can overlook its cliffhanger ending. If you're a soap watcher then DOT's ending will be no surprise. Personally, I'm waiting to see what Allen has in store for us in the next book.

Book Two of the Corellian Trilogy is, like its predecessor, not great, but good enough to enjoy. I'm sure that everybody, like myself, winced when they read the synopsis on the back of the book and saw that they had written that Han had an "evil cousin." While the character of Thracken Sal-Solo may suck, the plot he's involved in isn't all that bad (the familial relationship was entirely unnecessary, though).

There is lots of adventure in this book. Han, Leia, Mara, and the kids are trapped in the Corellian system and cannot communicate with the outside universe. Meanwhile, the New Republic can't find its way into the system because of a massive interdiction field. Meanwhile, in Corellia, Han makes an awesome, seat-of-the-pants escape attempt and finds another wonderful furry sidekick in Dracmus while separated from his mainstay, Chewie. The subplot with Luke and Lando starts to take on some meaning in relating to the main plot, and the Bakurans make an appearance, with Gaeriel Captison returning to the pages of the novels at long last. Plus, there is the looming threat of the Starbuster super-weapon. And the ending is a superb cliffhanger which, as it should, leaves you begging to read the next chapter (the first book didn't do so well on this mark).

As usual, the second book of the trilogy picks up the pace bigtime, with great action sequences and building tension that set us up for the grand finale. This is not my favorite SW novel trilogy, but it's not that bad (better than Black Fleet Crisis). Still, it is kind of tiring to see yet another weapon of massive destruction with the formulaic name (planet/star/sun/etc. + destructive verb, such as World Devastator, Death Star, Galaxy Gun, Sun Crusher, etc., Darksaber perhaps being the one pitiful exception).

Overall, average, but worth reading because it sets us up for the third book, by far the best of the trilogy. Now if only the movies had actually pulled that off...

Assault on Selonia begins where Ambush at Correllia left off. Han is captured, Leia is trapped, and Luke is on his way to find help. Luke is able to find help with the Bakurian navy that readers meet in the novel Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers. Bringing the two books together helped to tie some loose ends that were never really answered (like whatever happened to Gaeirel Captison).

Also, the characterization stayed pretty much true to the other books. The dialog and actions were believable. What also helped Assult at Selonia was the detailed craftsmanship of the narrative to bring the Selonia and Drall culture into the storyline. The anthropological feel to the cultures and how they worked helped to illustrate how the new characters Dracmus, Marcha, and Ebrihim reacted to certain situations.

The book receives four stars because of its narrative. Though it helped to convey the culture and action of the Star Wars universe, it took too long to explain certain aspects of the story. At certain points, I felt as if I was reading a technical manual on the Millennium Falcon or any other ship. Much of the detail about repairing that ship or any other didn't really need to be in there and slowed the pace of the book down a lot. But overall, it was an interesting read, and I recommend it for any Star Wars fan.

While I do agree with to some extent with the people who said they hated this series because of the author's writing style, even so it was fun and interesting and had a good plot that was well executed. Sure, this author isn't Tim Zahn, but I think he did a reasonably good job (better than a few others I could mention anyway) and the series is certainly worth reading if you're really a serious fan. However, if you're just a casual fan somewhat interested in finding out what happens next, this is not one I'd recommend, especially if you're just starting out and don't know anything about Star Wars chronology. Also, for all of you who (like myself) hated Callista as Luke's girlfriend and always thought he should be with Mara, think about the consequences if this series hadn't been written when it was, or not at all! (This series taking place about fourteen years after Return of the Jedi, and Star Wars history at the time it was written being at about six or seven years after Return of the Jedi) Though Callista was officially introduced in Children of the Jedi (eight years after Return of the Jedi) this series had already been written at the time and though it takes place some years later, she is never mentioned in it, since her character did not exist at the time it was written. So naturally it was fundamentally impossible for Luke and Callista to end up together due to George Lucas's lifesaving rule of all Star Wars books having to relate to each other. Anyway, this series picks up almost exactly where the previous one left off, shortly after the attack on Corona house, with Han imprisoned in a dungeon by his own long lost cousin, and sharing a cell with a somewhat bloodthirsty alien, Luke and Lando trying to get help for the Corelian sector which is trapped under an interdiction field, and Leia also stuck in a cell on Corellia with a room mate she isn't exactly pleased with... I have to admit Lando and Tendra make a cute couple. I didn't really like her much at first, because she seemed pretty boring, but I do like her with Lando. She's stable enough to keep him on the ground, but fun and interesting enough so he won't be bored, and I suppose anything is better than that whole Lando/Mara thing that seemed to be going on in some of the previous novels. Also, Gaeriel Captison makes her return at last in this book. I have to admit I like her better now since she seems a stronger female and can stand up for herself. Also she is no longer a love interest of Luke's so that opened me up to her more as well. Speaking of Luke, I felt bad for him in this book, since, while Gaeriel is no longer a love interest, her presence reminds him of how lonely he is... Also this book has some very interesting interaction between Leia and Mara, two characters who, while initially not trusting each other, have to work together to escape, and eventually start to become friends, which is good since within a year or so they're going to be sisters. It annoyed me though, that Han and Leia still seem to distrust her so much. She's been their friend for what, nine years? And even when she was an evil imperial agent it was Luke she wanted to kill, and even he has long since made up with her, and they have been close friends ever since. The kids are also fun to watch, since, being a longtime fan of Young Jedi Knights, it was fun to watch them as cute, spoiled, mischievous, superpowered, youngsters. Anyway, this is a good book that I greatly enjoyed and would recommend to most fans.

This book was a pleasant read but is most remarkable for the fact that it leaves absolutely no impact on your memory, the sign of a book that is little more than chewing gum. Pure wallpaper!

This book is a good read. Captivating, entertaining. The protaganist is no angel but is fighting on the side of angels. This book took on the asteroid impact before it became popular to do so. For that the author deserves a great deal of credit.

'Caliban', the first in this trilogy, is a good book and well worth seeking out, so is the third one, 'Utopia'. This is easily the least of the three. Although Allen tries to expand his examination of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics by introducing New Law robots the concept is not done with any verve, pace or excitement. As noted by another reviewer it has an Agatha Christie feel to it but without the charm or style of her mysteries. It's not even a particularly interesting puzzle. There's nothing in this middle book that can't easily be caught up with in the third. And the concept of Three Law/No Law and New Law is better examined there as well. You really don't need to spend the time on this one.

While the murder mystery was well set up, the ending was more of Agatha Christie ending, with a parlor room scene and a head shaker of a perpetrator. The political intrigue which should have been the height of this story was not focused on well enough. This is a society in the grips of an awful set of diriving forces that should have rocked the foundations of the planet. But you didn't feel that pain from the governor. The 4 law Robot introduced isn't given the same exploration that Caliban was in the first book. You do not get behind his head. The pain of transition should have been brought to bear hear as their are real world examples all around us. This missed the boat.

If he were alive to see what Allen did to his Robot Universe, he would strangle the guy. This is a perfect example of why Allen should've stuck to those Little House On The Prairie sequels. The basic idea of Inferno (Just like it's predecessor, Caliban) is the creation of two new kinds of robots: The New Law robots and the No Law robot, and their effect on the society of the planet Inferno. The New Law Robots are freer than the original Three Law robots in Asimov's books, but have their own share of problems; Caliban, the only robot created with no laws, is of course the most free, but is far from human. This is all well and good, and in a more capable writer's hands would have been interesting, but Allen takes his one or two good ideas and throws them in a turbine. I'm sorry, Mr. Allen, but I don't really care about the intimate details of Tierlaw Verick's body, or anyone else's, for that matter. Whatever happened to "don't tell, show"?