The Machine Crusade

Well, this book was the crappiest one by Herbert & Anderson so far.

The disappointments started from the very beginning. I started by reading the appendix and was encouraged when I read that "seven League representatives, all of them political rivals or people who have spoken out against Iblis Ginjo, were implicated as machine spies." My first thought was, these guys have started to get their act together. Political intrigue, and they don't even spell out whether or nor Ginjo framed them. Maybe this one will be better than the last one. However, my hopes were violently dashed after a mere 16 pages, when the authors tell me that "it might even be necessary to have someone 'discover' damning evidence of Chen's 'collusion' with the thinking machines." In hindsight, I guess it's amazing that they even held out 16 pages. The apparently overwhelming need they feel to spell everything out is SO annoying. Ginjo is married to the only remaining heiress of the Old Empire. WHY, oh why, must they tell me that he only married her for political reasons? Do they truly think their readers are as dumb as they are?

The premise that the League Parliament would spend time attempting to decipher the meaning of "archaic rune symbols" as a way to determine policy is absurd. The authors are handed on a silver platter an excellent opportunity to study the role that religion plays in governing the masses (particularly given the relevance of such topics to today's "war on terror"). That's certainly the way two authors with one brain between them would have gone with this idea; instead, we are treated to the moronic concept that the government would look for guidance in ancient prophecies of doubtful authenticity and even more doubtful relevance.

As with the earlier book, to call the characters one-dimensional would be to insult one-dimensionality. Since the authors are completely lacking in any ability to write their characters in a believable way, Iblis does not say or do anything charismatic; instead the authors TELL us that he is supposed to be charismatic. Perhaps the most ludicrous treatment of a character is Serena Butler. That she would allow herself to be a willing pawn in Ginjo's play for power, as well as the ridiculously unlikely way in which she acts, defies any sense of internal logic. That she would "hide in the City of Introspection" and "say whatever Iblis told her to say" is so at odds with everything else we have ever been told about her that it completely ruins every line of text surrounding this character. It's almost as if the authors have never met any human beings and thus cannot accurately predict human behavior. Perhaps Herbert & Anderson are thinking machines.

Other characters are equally uninteresting. Omnius continues to behave in absurdly dumb ways. The depiction of Holtzman (as a fool with little understanding of science) is incredibly stupid. The Cogitors are still idiots in jars, so devoid of logic (again, we're told they are brilliant, but this isn't really reflected in anything they say or do) that they boggle the mind. Xavier has long been extremely boring, except when his actions are just unseemly, such as the lightning speed with which he married Serena's sister after her "death." Erasmus is on his way to becoming just as boring. If Jool Noret fulfills any valuable purpose in this book, I have been unable to discern what it might be. And Norma Cenva, one of the saving graces of the first book, is portrayed in very poor fashion in this one.

The writing remains monumentally bad. As just one example of this, consider that in the span of A SINGLE PAGE, the authors used six different similies. And most of them hideous groaners: "like a hammer against an anvil", "like a hawk hunting a helpless pigeon", "like a talisman", "like a morsel of raw meat", "like a spider's egg sac", "like electronic talons". (For the record, they're writing about a space battle.) Ouch!

The last 80 pages are a veritable orgy of death and devastation, as character after character bites it. (It seems like the authors were just in a hurry to finish everyone off to set up the next book.) But the really sad part is that I couldn't possibly have cared less. The vapid characters, the abysmal writing and the improbable plot and characterization (including the amazingly unlikely coincidence through which two of the deaths are linked) all conspire to give the book a thoroughly unmemorable ending. What should have been tragic deaths are just more pages to get through in a fruitless attempt to get to the interesting and/or entertaining passages beyond, which unfortunately never materialize.

The other day I was in the bookstore looking through the first chapter of The Battle of Corrin, and some sentences in it made me realize that I didn't even remember the end of The Machine Crusade. So I went back and browsed through its final chapters again. Having done that, and remembering how truly *BAD* they were, I decided The Battle of Corrin was just not worth reading. I really don't care where Herbert & Anderson take their story.