(Update July 2013: The Conqueror's series is one of the most impressive stories I have ever read (I've graded ~2000). Although not all the books earned an A grade on first read because of the complexity, the overall series is a strong grade A. I suspect each story will earn a grade A on second read. The story includes more characters, situations, interactions, species, and concepts than most authors deal with in a lifetime. Yet the author manages to keep it all straight for the reader, an impressive major accomplishment. In all this there are only two major villains, both politicians - very interesting. This definitely deserves a second read.)2013 grade B. This is a technically difficult read. It is entirely told from the alien's point of view. All their names are hard to pronounce, multi-syllable, and in the format last-first - which means you do not know who is talking until the second or third syllable. When English dialog is present it is missing words and parts of words that the aliens cannot translate. The substituted word is "something" every time. At least the aliens should be able to recognize different sounds. The result is often gibberish to the reader. I found it made no difference whether I understood or not and since it slowed me down, I started skipping them. It didn't make any difference in my understanding of the content.The author also digresses off the main story line to explain the alien culture. Not only was much of this boring, it was also unnecessary. Maybe that's because I have read about 3000 novels but I started speed reading through these and had no problem understanding the content.Book two in a series of three. The story basically ends on a cliff hanger, although not a major one. Never the less, I advise not reading it or book one until you have the last book in hand because in book three you have to keep track of all the characters from book one and two.Given those difficulties, I still liked it..
This one is written from the Zhirrzh's (what's the possessive of 'Zirrzh' anyway?) point of view. It also takes place after the events of Pride, so you don't see what exactly what happened at every point during that time from this side, but you pick up the basic idea. The Zirrzh are interesting in that they have essentially conquered death, and that makes for some unique societal features.The chief complaint I have in this book is that it has a touch of "we need a new word for no reason" syndrome (also known as Anathem-itis). It breaks the flow if you have to stop and mentally translate "beat" and "hunbeat" every other sentence, even if it only takes you a fraction of a second. The rest of the book is "translated" into english for our benefit, what was wrong with "seconds" and "minutes?"Still, Zahn exercises his world-building muscles yet again in this one, and he crafts a whole believable society in a fairly short period of time. That alone makes this worth reading.
I was hoping that this second book would continue the trend of the first, but I was sadly mistaken. Rather than a bunch of incomprehensible names and switching out time words (minute, hour, day, etc) with equally burdensome names (tenarc, thoustride) in order to make the aliens seem alien, just made the text an annoyance to get through since, outside of changing the vocabulary a little, there was absolutely nothing alien about the aliens. This happens a lot in sci-fi, the humans talk about how aliens don't think like us, won't feel like us, etc., but it turns out that outside of the burden of dredging through "When Xndsyx-dhezmmndn-xnxnxnxxxx looked at his watch, he saw that that it was 3 humbeats past tenarc before laternoon" there is nothing alien about it at all - which would be interesting if that was the point he was trying to make - that we and aliens are actually alike- but it wasn't, so it isn't.
—R. August
With this book Timothy Zahn accomplishes several things few authors are capable of. 1) He write a book from the point of view of an alien living on an alien world without any character to act as a audiance representative that learns about the world and culture along with us. 2) He makes an extremely alien culture and government seem mundane. Aliens have to do paperwork too.3) He advances the story of the series without relying on the characters of the first book in a way that feels mostly natural, and isn't marred by our desire to get back to the characters of the first book.I am really really impressed by this book, and while I enjoyed reading it less than the first one, it made my enjoyment of the finale so many times greater. Stories that show conflict from both sides, and both points of view are almost always stronger than stories with a more one sided focus, and with this book Zahn shows that he is not only willing to offer a token effort to show opposing points of view, he wants to offer equal time.You should read it if you read "Conqueror Pride".
—Troy G
The second in the series, written more from the point of view of the opposing force, the Conquerers. I found this added to my interest and kept the plot moving forward well. It also allowed Zahn to revisit some of the earlier episodes and fill in motivation for the aliens behavior, something most authors don't take the time to do. It is important in this case because the plot hinges on these moments. Once again, if you are a fan of what I call "good ole' sci-fi", well-plotted, character-driven, hard science, etc, you will likely enjoy this second installment.
—Laurie
