In Conquest Born (Audible Audio Edition) C S Friedman Joe Barrett Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : In Conquest Born (Audible Audio Edition) C S Friedman Joe Barrett Audible Studios Books
In Conquest Born is the monumental science fiction epic that received unprecedented acclaim - and launched C.S. Friedman's phenomenal career. A sweeping story of two interstellar civilizations locked in endless war, it was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award.
In Conquest Born (Audible Audio Edition) C S Friedman Joe Barrett Audible Studios Books
As others have mentioned, this is not an easy book. Each chapter is a mini-story, creating a whole. It traverses times, characters, locations, and you must keep up. But it is very much worth the effort. I don't want to scare you away, it isn't a slog, it isn't painful at all. I just don't want you to go into it without having a clue. This is one of my top favorite books, ever. My old paper copy is falling apart from multiple readings. If you were able to read and enjoy Dune or Game of Thrones, or any other dense, rich story, you will find In Conquest Born to be as rewarding.Product details
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In Conquest Born (Audible Audio Edition) C S Friedman Joe Barrett Audible Studios Books Reviews
The premise is good. The execution sucks. There are so many different characters with several different POV, it's hard to keep track of what's going on and how those characters are important to the plot. He would have done better with less POV characters and focusing on the POV of four characters at most. If I didn't have to read this for a book club, I would have stopped reading at 30% on my kindle.
Looking through the reviews, it seems like many people find the main characters - I hesitate to tag either with protagonist or antagonist - to be immoral, vicious scumbags.
They are.
But it's hard to imagine the Braxins, a culture that values a good emnity more than friendship - and scorns friendship - turning out a pleasant person. And it's hard to imagine an Azean who could stand against the best the Braxins have to offer being anything nice.
Actually, there is a nice Braxin. Don't worry, he's persuaded to change. He wasn't that nice either. Never mind.
It's unfortunate that Braxin, with its 42 speech modes, doesn't translate fully into English. A speech that has a way to explicitly express what we have to use unreliable tones to express would be interesting to read. Trying to pick out the third level of speech left unstated by word or speech mode would be even better. Listening to two masters of the speech duel would be something I would like to have the capability to read in it's original language.
Did I mention the book is brilliant? From the front of each chapter, which provides a quote from the founders of the Braxins (one of the main races), to the chapters themselves, it reads quickly and well, never getting bogged down in details, but filling in enough to give you a very strong sense of two cultures, and the some of the sub-cultures within them. For better and for worse. Proud accomplishment is tempered by difficulty and unexpected consequence.
Finally, after 700+ pages, the story is closed, without a clear winner. But closed nevertheless.
It is illustrative that the book comes with Anzha - the Azean -on the front cover in one edition (pictured above) and Zatar - the Braxin - on the front cover in the other edition. I picked up a copy with Zatar on the front cover, and read it with him as protagonist. Then, I saw Anzha on the front cover of another copy of the book, and I was rocked. Two protagonists. Reading it looking from the other side yields just as much depth. Either one is a good central focus.
Two bits from within the book illustrate the book itself
1 - A poet is comissioned to speak a poem for a diverse group of people. Having tried and discarded themes, the poet picks a large overarching theme that no one can admit to really believing, but does, and listens enraptured while the poet tells the story, because of her mastry of the language.
2 - There is a thing called the k'airth-v'sa - literaly 'mate of the private war' where two people are bound in a vendetta that strengthens them as they seek to eliminate their weaknesses and exploit their opponent's.
Lastly, a quote from the front of a chapter
"A man who will not resort to violence must find his own ways to manipulate men" - Harkur
Nice philosophy.
I just finished C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy, and was blown away. I haven't read such a good series in a long time. I thought I'd become too jaded or that my expectations were too high and I wasn't able to enjoy a series as much as I used to, but the Coldfire trilogy proved me wrrong, and I was happy to be wrong. So I went looking for other books by C.S. Friedman, and saw In Conquest Born had high reviews. Maybe my expectations were once again too high after the Coldfire trilogy, but I found this story sorely lacking in many ways.
The characters - I cared absolutely nothing for any of them. It wasn't so much that they were detestable. The Hunter from the COldfire trilogy certainly wasn't a good person, but he had some redeeming qualities that made him a facinating character even though I didn't always LIKE him. The characters in In Conquest Born are flat, without complexity, and have no redeeming quality, I feel, and were therefore of no interest. In addition, I never felt like I really got to know them, never felt like I was experiencing through their eyes. I felt like I was "told" things about these characters rather than "shown". Also, much of the beginning of the book was told through letters, communications both calls and telepathically, which is a very detacted way to introduce characters, and was used as a rather obvious vehical to deliver pages and pages of cultural and political explinations, which got really old and annoying for me after a few pages.
The plot was also rather obvious and simple, and very predictable I found. I found myself putting the audiobook on "fast" spead to get through the slow, tedious parts and to something interesting. Some plot developments were a bit of a stretch, a few times out of character for the characers and while the author tried hard to justify such developments and make them plausible, it seems to me is comes across as "trying too hard" on the part of the author, which I thought made it more obvious how unlikely such developments were. I felt like these plot developments were forced contrary to character's and natural plot flow to make the story go in a certain direction. Nothing wrong with that, but if it doesn't make sense, it really is jarring to me.
I really enjoyed the lengthy descriptions in the Coldfire trilogy, of unusual characters and a facinating world. But in In Conquest Born, I found the same lengthy descriptions unnecessary and uniteresting, usually giving way too much detail to rather mundane settings and people. The two worlds and cultures seemed like stereotypical opposites with few truly unique aspects. However, i didn't find them wholely uninteresting either. I found the telepathic evolution and human evolution in general an interesting topic but neither was ever really flushed out. The whole book felt like a scale with the few shining interesting bits canceled out by equally boring, uninteresting bits.
Overall, I did not find In Conquest Born a terrible read, it was worth listening too, and I'm not disappointed that I spent a credit on Audible on it, but it wasn't great. I was bored much of the story. I didn't think it worth 5 stars. I'd give it 2.5 stars if I could, because I am exactly in the middle in my regard for this book.
As others have mentioned, this is not an easy book. Each chapter is a mini-story, creating a whole. It traverses times, characters, locations, and you must keep up. But it is very much worth the effort. I don't want to scare you away, it isn't a slog, it isn't painful at all. I just don't want you to go into it without having a clue. This is one of my top favorite books, ever. My old paper copy is falling apart from multiple readings. If you were able to read and enjoy Dune or Game of Thrones, or any other dense, rich story, you will find In Conquest Born to be as rewarding.
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