In the future, out in space, six hundred years after the Directorate has taken over the care of mankind on planets and stations there is no war. One planet called World by its people who are descendants of crash-landed American Indian tribes is beyond the edge of inhabited space. They call their God Spider. And, they are warriors.

The story flows well and pulled me along. I had a gripe about some word choices but, they were only a minor distraction.

I am looking forward to the other two books.

i READ THIS BOOK AS WELL AS THE OTHER TWO OF THE TRILOGY AND I THOUGHT IT GOT BETTER AND BETTER. IT WAS A VERY DIFFERENT LOOK AT SPACE SCI-FI OPERA IF YOU WANT TO CALL IT THAT. THE CHARACTERS ARE FUN AND THE ACTION IS WELL WRITTEN.

I read the book years ago, but it's still one of my all-time favorites. Interesting and thoughtful philsophy, lots of action, lots of mystery and adventure. The first book is good, and the rest of the series just gets better and better.

WELL THERE ARE PLENTY OF INDIANS BUT NO SPACE COWBOYS, JUST PLENTY OF COOL ACTION AND GREAT STORYTELLING AND CHARACTERS. A MUST READ.

THIS SERIES IS A FUN ACTION PACKED STORY. IT HAS SOME DEFINATE POINTS TO CONSIDER. THE BEST IMPACT CAN BE ACHIEVED IF ALL 3 BOOKS ARE READ.

A definite jewel in the deep voids of the SF world, Michael Gear has created yet another masterpiece. A coalesce of complex ideas: epistemology, mythology, philosophy. Michael Gear uses his masterful skills to create an artificial universe in which the Forbidden Borders trap Humanity, a synthetic gravity-well that has been placed by the "gods." Staffa starts to question whether or not these gods are real, and if it is possible to raze the walls that confine Humanity to only a few selected planets. However, Staffa quickly finds himself looking into the face of oblivion. Fixed between two warring empires, Staffa starts to wonder if death is the only option. A definite find, it will be enjoyed through all of the 626 pages. Bravo to Michael Gear, and his fine piece of literature. *Note: it would be best to read the first book, Requiem for the Conquer, as to the fact that many of the characters went through key and significant changes.

I admit that this book is the weakest one in the series, and if I had read it first I might not have read the others. Although the characters have depth, the story is disjointed and vague. However, if you take the time to read the other books on the series, you will not be disappointed. They are EXCELLENT!

I read this book in 1997 and immediately read the remainder of the series. I became enthralled with Raven Hunter and Runs in Light, this book, the first among the series, is referred to in nearly every book as the battle between dark and light, between the First brothers. The myth of these brothers is also talked about by other authors, like William Sarabande. The writing in these books is excellent, as in ALL the Gear's novels. I recommend reading them in succession, as they all tie in to one another. I haven't read any of their science-fiction novels on genetics but I recently read Bone Walker (after I read the preceeding novels), and enjoyed it immensely. You have to love the beginning of these books where some dusty construction worker "happens" to find some Indian bones, then you're hooked on how they got there and you have to know!

I read this series of books and I must say that the authors did a fabulous job of bringing the characters and the landscapes to life. As a follower of similar belief systems I found this book hit home with me in a spiritual sense. The authors do a wonderful job portraying the characters and their lives in a very real and believable way. I just can't put the series down.

The Visitant is actually two stories in one... one of which is fascinating, the other of which needs serious reworking. Picture it: New Mexico, 1256 AD in the Anasazi Talon Town, a series of murders has taken place that defy rational explanation. Switch to 800 years later, same place, different characters; a team of archaeologists and anthropologists discover the remains of Talon Town and its burial site of the muder victims. Or are they the remains of the murderers?

The stories are interwoven, but I really really found the "now" story to be tedious and underwrought. If the authors weren't belaboring how much the main character hates women, and if they didn't say how much his female-foil hated him (and don't you just KNOW they're gonna get together by Book Three...), and if they didn't get caught up in inane campfire chat about farts, I may have been more impressed.

But, they didn't and I wasn't.

The Anasazi story is well-written and while the primative "psychology" is a bit of a stretch, it is fascinating nonetheless. My only problem is that the murders are never truly resolved. A muderer is found, yes, but there is no clear explanation of their motives, their state of mind, their... anything. There's lots of build up, with no follow through. I know there's supposed to be two more books, but the books ends with the feeling that this is a stand-alone book, but as such it is unsatisfying.. moreso because important issues are never resolved, but there is no .. "bridge" at which the next book can connect.

I left this book feeling disappointed and somewhat confused. Yes, I'll read the next book but only because I want to know what becomes of the Anasazi Tribes. I'm just gonna skip over those anthropolgist/relic hunter people.. they're just icky.

The Visitant is a suspenseful murder mystery set in two eras, the neo-lithic New Mexican desert and the modern day Chaco Canyon National Park. The authors manage to weave two stories, two settings and two plots seamlessly. This book is multi-faceted in that it will interest the murder/mystery story lover, the historical fiction connoisseur and the amateur archaelogist. Technically, the book is well written using anthropology lingo and describing the methodology used by modern archaeologists on a "dig". Creatively the book is first rate using vivid descriptions of pre-historic Anasazi life in New Mexico. I rated this book at four stars only because I wish it had been more in depth when dealing with the Anasazi culture and customs. If you crave a fast paced mystery coupled with an imaginative, intellectual subject matter don't hesitate to read this book.

A woman screams in the night as her attacker uses what could only be called inhuman force. Where are we?...Central Park in modern New York? No, we're in prehistoric New Mexico with members of the Anasazi in the Gear's latest contribution to Native American fiction, "The Visitant".

This book accomplishes two things. One, it presents an excitong detailed murder mystery that leaves you guessing untill the last page. Second, it paints a picture of Native Americans that is less idyllic than most. Essentially, we see a group of prehistoric peoples who suffer from grief and tragedy, just like us. The Gear's accomplish this with copius research and an understanding of the timeless complexity of the human soul...whether it be in 1256 A.D. or present day.

The amount of names can become confusing so just make sure you pay attention because you will be rewarded with the final ghostly laughter that made me look over my shoulder.

Overall: I can't wait until the next book in the series comes out.

time to stop reading this book..

I picked this book up in the spring of 1990 while at a Fred Meyer store in Salt Lake City. I had never heard of W. Michael Gear, but the image of the space-suited man on the cover captured my attention, and it looked like a nice thick book, so I bought it.

I was not dissappointed! The Artifact is an interesting mix of deep space war story and political espionage, with alien supertechnology thrown in for good measure. The Brotherhood seem very much like a benevolent Freemasonry seeking to preserve the best parts of human science and history against the tumult of competing human governments that wield massively destructive firepower. Of course, The Artifact itself winds up being an intruiging character, as does Boaz, the female-gendered superstarship under the command of our main hero, Captain Carasco.

I found Carasco to be a sympathetic and engaging main character, not just a little reminiscent of the Thomas Covenant character from S.R. Donaldson's books. Carasco is a tortured soul who has seen too much, made too many terrible decisions, and through much of the book is at war with himself even more than he is at war with the forces around him. I liked Carasco's depth and humanity, and his struggle largely drives the book.

Like most good SF, the key to The Artifact's success lies in the fact that under all the gosh-wow hardware and deep space imagery, there is a very human story taking place here. Carasco, and many of the others, draw us in with recognizable struggles, weaknesses, and strengths.

The Artifact was so good I snapped up the Forbidden Borders trilogy when W.M. Gear released it a few years later. Forbidden Borders is also very well written.

Simply put, "The Artifact" is a page-turner. W. Michael Gear has created a fascinating universe filled with powerful governments, first-rate characterization, and enough 'who-done-it' mystery to keep the reader on the edge of his seat.

"The Artifact" deals with (obviously) an artifact of alien origin found at the edges of known space. This device is so powerful that anyone who contols it could literally conquer the universe. Unknown to the humans that find the artifact, they weren't the first beings to come across this ultimate weapon, an indeed, those who came first ended up completely destroying their civilations.

Center to the story is Captain Carrasco, the youngest and the best captain to ever fly a starship, and the one selected by the 'Brotherhood' to fly the greatest ship ever built, pick up this alien device, and bring it back. The problem is that Carrasco, after losing his third ship, is a jumbled mess of fractured nerves and regret, and here lies my frustration with this otherwise fine novel. While I understand the importance of Carrasco's plight to the plot, one incident after another...after another...after another is drummed into the reader concerning Carrasco fitness to captain a ship. Finally, I wanted to scream out, "Yeah! You told us a hundred times already!!"

However, "The Artifact" has so many endearing qualities that my frustration for this one aspect turns out to be a rather minor complaint. Matter-of-fact, I enjoyed this novel so much, that I would readily read it again, and highly recommend it to any sci-fi fan. Between 1 and 10, I give "The Artifact" a solid 8. Do yourself a favor and purchase this novel now!

The basic idea of this book is indisputably neato. I found myself really looking forward to how the tale might unfold, once I got the basic idea of a race of not-quite-human-beings having existed alongside us for 35,000 years. However, there really could have been a lot more research put into this. The science just didn't make sense to me, compared with, say, a Michael Crichton novel. It was very, VERY skimpy to say the least. Anyone with the slightest scientific background will probably feel kind of insulted on that point.

That said, the book isn't without its redeeming features. There is a lot of tension built up, as we wonder which of the hero's friends are human, and which... aren't. There are a few flaws... I think the very last few pages were probably supposed to be an unexpected "twist" ending, designed to give the reader that certain, satisfying jolt, but for me it didn't exactly work. I probably shouldn't go into it here, really, so suffice it to say that it concerns the hero's son.

Read this as a thriller, if you enjoy thrillers, especially thrillers heavy on chase scenes and police work. But the science really isn't too well done, so please be prepared for that if you are in the market for science fiction.

a really great story idea, that wasn't executed well. The whole "Suicide Club" seemed pretty pointless to me. There were too many extraneous characters. It didn't add to the suspense to expose the reader to characters that added nothing to the storyline. And the 'surprises' about some of the characters really weren't very surprising. Way too many, way too easy 'clues' were sprinkled throughout the story.

Also - it would have been more interesting if the author had spent some more time developing the idea of another hidden culture, the science behind the story, and filling in some of the holes in the story's logic. Although maybe that's not a fair criticism if this book is a "mystery thriller" and not sci-fi.

Finally...I thought the very end was really stupid. It might have been kind of eerie if there had been any build-up to it, but it made no sense to me.

But what the heck, still much more entertaining than most read-in-a-day fiction. I still think its worth three stars compared to the other stuff you can buy on the run at a newsstand.

"Waiting" takes place in San Francisco, California, where Artie Baker, a middle-aged TV newswriter, and a handful of his friends (dubbed The Suicide Club since young adulthood--long story) are trying to solve the brutal murder of one of their members. Not only that, but Artie's wife and stepson have suddenly disappeared, just at the crucial moment when someone has been trying to kill him, as well as the people he associates with because of what they know.

After some time, what Artie and his friends soon discover is that a centuries-old species of human (called the Old People) have been waiting all this time for Homo sapiens to exterminate themselves off the planet. But for fear of being revealed and destroyed themselves, the Old People decide to declare a covert war on Homo sapiens in order to reclaim domination of the world.

When I started reading "Waiting," I checked out a few reviews at Amazon beforehand to see what others thought of it. I was only a few chapters into it, but I really liked it so far and was quite surprised by all the low reviews of it. When I picked the book back up, I kept expecting it to get worse like several reviewers had said. However, it didn't. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. It's not very high on action, but it is quite thought-provoking on our existence in the next century or so, as possibly the next endangered species on Earth.

"Waiting" reminded me a little of something Dean Koontz would write, minus any sci-fi nonsense, which I kept expecting since it was published by Tor, a sci-fi-heavy publisher. It's a well-written thriller, and if you like such novels, then you'll probably like "Waiting."

On the bright side, Gear develops some fairly interesting characters in spite of the failings, and keeps a high suspense level. He did make a real effort to create aliens who thought in an alien way.

However, his humans are hopelessly stereotypical. Just as every Chinese person a Caucasian meets does not say 'ancient Chinese secret' every time s/he comes up with a bit of wisdom, neither do Israelis make constant Holocaust/Lebanon references, nor did Russians (late Cold War) make constant statements about political matters, and nor do black Americans always make reference to the mean streets of Detroit (or wherever). If the characters had been allowed to be themselves, rather than their nationalities, they'd have been more interesting.

While on the topic of nationality, Gear had best do some more research on language. 'Yeled' means 'child' in Hebrew, and is not a likely name for a male. One Russian character's last name is done wrong for her gender. On top of all this, it is too obvious that he got a lot of his information on the Soviet Army from Victor Suvorov's (real name Vladimir Rezun, a Soviet defector) books. You'd think he would have at least camouflaged the references, but authors who take the easy way always get caught, and Gear is busted with the goods here.

If one can get past all of the above, it's not a bad book.

Starstrike is laid low by it's characterization. While the plot itself is moderately gripping, most characters appear at best cardboard cutouts and at worst completely 0 dimensional. This is especially apparent in the desription of non-Americans, who are reduced to caricature status. Literally every sentence they make has some aspect designed to heavy-handedly remind the reader which country they are coming from, wether it's incessant Holocaust metaphores in case of the Israelis or the (somewhat less common) referring to everybody and everything as "Comrade X" by the Russians. I will not even touch the fact that aliens who live for multiple billions of years (and study humanity for thousands of those years) are outsmarted via a fairly childish strategem. I recommend everybody to pass this one by.

Michael Gear shows some thought provoking ideas of alien thought processes while slapping us in the face about how we use stereotypes. As a average sci-fi reader this book gives some interesting twists in the plot while keeping your attention and does a good job of showing how hard it should be to understand a completely different way of thinking.