Amy DuBoffReseñas

This is not Science Fiction, this is Action / drama and no brains.
I put it down only a couple chapters in, when our rescued girl, now with mysteriously unknown super powers is to be sent on a mission by a high admiral, to close a Crystal Archive, for which he has no instructions or ideas about how.
There has to be science to the fiction, otherwise it's just futuristic fantasy. This one's particularly juvenile... there's this civilization wide tech of Crystal's, and other tech used, but apparently no one understands a single thing about any of it.

A great start to the Dark Stars series. Interesting characters engaged in a fascinating situation while they learn to wield their newly acquired powers. Looking forward to book 2!

Really thin on plot, this story spent more time on unimportant relationship stuff than actual character or plot development. We get a very, very brief glance at the training the agents of the TSS do before the story jumps three years into the future and skips over how Cris's abilities and responsibilities grow and develop (the romance was way more important than the character's development [/sarcasm]). The romance between Cris and Kate is so contrived both writing-wise and plotwise that I was rolling my eyes the whole time. You see, Kate's birth was timed to coincide with Cris's, as they're both High Born members who were meant to marry for family alliances and business mergers and because of the breeding scheme between the TSS and the Priesthood ... Generations of Bene Gesserit are rolling theirs eyes in my head right now

Then there's the conspiracy between the Priesthood (here treated like the big, bad, boogeyman) and the Tararian Selective Service (TSS) … I found the whole scheme silly. And the few women this story are just background noise. Even poor Kate gets short shrift.

In a lot of ways, this story reads like a poor fanfic crossover between the far better written Dune and, yes, Ender's Game.

The title of this book is extremely accurate. Reading this really feels like reading about the process of an architect – it’s extremely slow, nothing exciting happens, and in the end everything works out all the time.

I read 50% of this book and then skimmed to 60% before I decided I wouldn’t finish it. It’s just too goddamn boring to deal with the last 40%. Let’s break down some of the sections of this blueprint of boringness, shall we?

1) The hero is as boring as stale bread.

Cris Sietinen is the heir of one of the six big corporations that, together with the ominous ‘Priesthood’ make up the government of the world this story is set in. He is the second-born, but his older brother died, and apparently he felt like his parents are bitter over having him instead of his older brother as their heir, especially because he has telepathic/telekinetic abilities. So far so good. There is a lot of potential for anger and conflict and what do I know here – but the author just doesn’t really do anything with it. Cris knows that everybody else is wrong and that he should be allowed to use his powers. He knows that his parents are wrong. He runs away because he wants to ‘find himself’, something I have literally never heard any 16-year-old say, and of course he knows his way around everywhere pretty much instantly. He never really feels any negative feelings about where his story takes him, and while he does make a nice speech about how the Priesthood shouldn’t rule everybody, he has plenty few conflicted feelings about eventually returning to his family to pick up where he left off. Nothing ever really goes wrong for him. Which brings us to:

2) There are no actual setbacks. Like, at all.

Interesting stories are stories of failures, and of people trying to deal with circumstances that threaten to overpower them. There is nothing of that here. Maybe there’s a vague sense of threat at the beginning, but even that is harmless – so he doesn’t get to train his abilities while he keeps living in luxury, big fucking deal. So he tries to run away, and nothing goes wrong. He gets to the space port with hardly anything even complicating it. He finds a ship that will take him no problem. The people on that ship are nice, hard-working space merchants who don’t deal with illegal shit, great.

And then there’s all these conflict-teases that never really lead to anything worth reading.

Example: Suddenly Cris wakes up and the alarm of the ship is on. He floats through the air, coughs up his last meal, then floats through the ship – and turns out it’s only been a bit of friendly hazing instead of, say, pirates taking over the ship. Then he manages to get himself lost in the seedy part of a bigger space station. He nearly gets sold off into slavery – but nah, he manages to escape, all on his own, with not even a hair out of place. Later he gets attacked by an assassin sent by the Priesthood, who allegedly is the most powerful organization in all the universe, but honestly, a chimp with a gun would have had a better chance at actually killing anyone than that bloke. Even with a blaster-equivalent being fired off in his face, Mighty Cris of course doesn’t get a stretch – instead he activates his super special powers and the assassin runs off like a kicked dog.

3) If the hero is stale bread, the other characters are month-old rice crackers.

Seriously, all the side characters are basically there to transport Cris from point A to B, to act as an info terminal on two legs or to point out to him how special and powerful and unusual he is. Even the guy he spends a year with on board of a cargo ship stays what is basically a cut-out of your average sea dog In Space. Nobody but Cris has any backstory worth mentioning, nobody has any ambitions that don’t revolve around Cris, nobody has any negative feelings towards him.

Snore.

4) This might just as well be a thesis on the interior design of space ports.

About 20% of this book is an info dump delivered by the cardboard cut-outs that one might call side characters, 10% are Cris thinking the obvious or having inner monologues in very distracting and useless italic, and 70% are descriptions of every single goddamn space port and space base and other space space that Cris visits. I literally don’t need to know what color the crossbars at a tiny space port are. Seriously. It’s not that interesting.

5) Antagonist? What Antagonist?

So I guess you could call the Priesthood the antagonist? But not really, because they have ‘plans’ for Cris? Or maybe his father is the antagonist – but he’s literally not showing up anymore after 5% of the book. Or maybe the anti-telepath sentiment of this world is an antagonistic force? Well, could have been if his telepathic/telekinetic powers would not always work out to his advantage. Even when we enter the extremely boring training segments (from the 50 to 60% point) the author doesn’t even give us the curtsy of a school-yard villain or a disapproving mentor. Nah, everybody thinks Cris is just the bee’s knees. And if he tells them he’s not, he’s told that his humility is going to bring him far.

I’m still giving this book two stars because it was not offensive or bad enough to warrant one star. It just was… not really anything.

At the risk of repeating myself:

Snore.

Fairly interesting read. The main character has psi powers, and can read other's thoughts, however this is frowned on by the priesthood. He plots to run away from home to try to join up with the TSS who can teach him this skill.
Full of interest and intrigue, this book held my interest from front to back!

It's a quick read. it took me less than two hours... in some ways it's a very standard read. That said, the characters are well written and engaging. Telepathy and Telekinesis is handled far better than in many books.

Overall, I'd rate this as a meh book. It couldn't seem to decide what it wanted to do, so tried to do everything.

I'm thinking the first two and a half chapters could have been dropped, starting the story much later, but it would mean a much better story. I'd do this become of some poor word choices, a very definite information dump -- complete with lantern to spotlight it, and bad order of plot points.The characters have little to no personality. The story line really doesn't have much to pry it out of the miasma of other similar stories. Okay, yes, this author tried to do more with telekinesis than others, but everyone is poking at the powers of the brain of late.

The book seemed to improve as I reached chapter 6 and I didn't struggled as much as I had the first two and a half to three chapters. I find less to snark about. The characters haven't really improved, the story line is still a mushy mess, and now I'm getting a "Everyone has a Hogwarts book" vibe. The romance story line feels forced and the main character feels rather stiff and stilted.

Over five years passes in this book, and too much feels rushed and glazed over. The romance especially. They go from meeting to being engaged in two months, but you get very little details regarding their courtship. Cris's year aboard the Exler is limited to a few chapters. It felt like the author couldn't decide on training school or space opera, so tried to wedge them both in.

Why did they include a glossary of terms at the end of the book? Nothing was that strange, if you read close enough...

Debatable if I get the next.½

So I was hoping this book was going to be a little bit like Terra E with espers and all that aaand, it's not. Really psychic powers don't even play all that much into this book other than Cris has them and he's really good at them. SO good he's the "chosen one" of being good with them.
I mean his powers don't even play into this so much that I even think the author at times forgot he had them like the scene in the ship store where he doesn't even use them to see if the people behind the counter are going to try and kidnap him.
The next problem I have with the book is that a lot of the secondary characters feel like props. Thom is there to basically tick off the "Spent time in a commoner spacecraft" box. Scott is the "Segue into the baby factory meetup" box and then there's Kate who is basically the baby factory. She doesn't really get any outstanding personality and is super in love with Cris. She of course gets mad at him when he reveals himself as High Dynasty, but that's quickly resolved and over with and they can get back to the baby making because that seems to be part of the major plot here is that they (of course) have a son who goes on to do things. At least the author has the sense of mind to realize that Cris having sex with Kate before telling her who he really was would be rape. Most authors think that shit is OK. So, she does get major credits for that...
However her views on women certainly aren't progressive, having the women in scoop necked tank tops and more form conforming clothes than the men. I mean it's written that Cris doesn't have coaching on girls and acts on instinct. Girls, you mean women, are human and I sure as hell hoped he'd have learnt how to treat fellow humans and second, instinct is that shitty excuse that men use when they rape women. They "can't help it" and all that bullshit. Really if he doesn't know what he's doing he could.. iunno... ASK

Overall the book is bland and things seem to happen simply for plot so there's not a lot of characterization going on. People are as flat as tables and nobody really has an outstanding personality. Not even Cris. That being said I did add a star just because the author had the decency to put on the brakes to Cris' love scene and have him go "That'd be wrong!"
You could probably compare this book to Phantasy Star III for the depth of characterization.

Goodreads Synopsis: This is an alternate cover edition for ASIN: B00TT6OIFO

Out of sight beyond Earth, the Taran empire spans the galaxy from its seat of power on Tararia.

Cris Sietinen was born with rare telekinetic gifts—abilities he refuses to ignore, regardless of the governing Priesthood's decrees. But, as heir to the most influential Dynasty on Tararia, only a stifled life of business and politics awaits him within the confines of his family's estate. Determined to be true to himself and explore the potential of his abilities, Cris leaves Tararia to begin a new life touring the stars. When Cris unexpectedly receives an invitation to join the Tararian Selective Service (TSS), the only organization to offer an official telekinesis training program, a new future awaits. It's his dream opportunity to be among people like himself, free from the Priesthood and political objectives. Except, Cris' path was designed, and he's right where the Priesthood wants him.

Architects of Destiny is the first installment in the Cadicle series. A fast-paced space adventure with intrigue, coming-of-age and romance, this short novel is a prelude to the defining events in Tararia’s history in the ensuing years.

Is it possible to change destiny? The Cadicle series follows three generations of the pivotal Sietinen Dynasty as each learns their part in an elaborately orchestrated galactic conflict. Torn by politics, love and war, the Cadicle and those he holds most dear must choose between duty and morality as the true nature of their purpose unfolds. Through their roles as Agents in the Tararian Selective Service, they will be on the front lines of space battles, but the political skirmishes they must face on Tararia could prove just as dangerous. The Cadicle holds the key to winning both, but at what cost?

My Review: First of all, I really liked the cover of this book. There wasn't any specific reason I chose to read it at this time, aside from it being the first book on my list in my reading app, but I'm glad I chose it. I wasn't too sure what I was getting into when it began, but basically it's about a boy named Cris, who has telepathic powers. His family is pretty much royalty, they're super rich and have a lot of control. But Cris is more than just a boy with telepathic powers. He has his own thoughts, and most of them are about how he feels like he's a replacement for his dead brother, and what he's going to do as the heir of his family. He has family troubles, is what I'm trying to get at. His world bans telepathy, and his father wants him to ignore his powers. So he runs away. And from there, his life just progressively becomes more and more interesting. The book goes through five years of his life, and lets just say lots of things happen in that time. I loved that not only were the main characters interesting, but the characters around them were too. The world seemed so lifelike for most of it being in space. I know Cris is young at the beginning of the book, but at 19 years old I found I could enjoy reading this book and almost everything in it. I'm glad he grew and changed as a person through the story, and has plans to change the world. The only things I didn't like about this book, were the parts where there were time jumps, like it moved a year or 3 forward. Although it helped progress the story along, it's hard to believe that nothing interesting happened during those periods of time. That's a long time to just space out for. I didn't like how Cris and Kate talked to each other at first, although it was formal it came off as awkward to me. Not that people aren't awkward, just strange. I don't understand the one letter change in the swears, but there were only a couple. That's about it, though. The rest of the book I fully enjoyed, and will be looking into the second book in the series. I definitely recommend you check it out if you want a breath of fresh air, and you're looking for something new to read. Thanks for reading!

(radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

In Book 2 in the series beginning with The Architects of Destiny, Kate and Cris’s marriage have united the heirs of two of the most powerful of the dynasties. They may now be in a position to politically influence the other dynasties in the future. As members of the TSS Command Level, Cris has risen to Chief Agent and is a major influence in the TSS. Kate and Cris’s son Wil has grown to the age of fourteen and has proven to be as strong as predicted. He has risen on the Bakzen’s radar screen and is known to them as the “Dragon”. The violent Colonel Tek has arranged with a Bakzen sympathizer inside TSS headquarters to have Wil kidnapped. Bakzen General Carzen would like to turn Will peacefully to sympathize with the Bakzen, but Colonel Tek would like to kill him and destroy the threat he poses.
Cris is faced with rescuing Will from the the Bakzen at all costs. Will is able to help in his rescue, but what they learn changes both him and Cris in ways they never imagined.
The Veil of Reality is an entertaining continuation of the Cadicle Series that continues to pose the question “What next?” The reader feels that they are posed on the brink of a precipice ready to take the next step and slide down hill into the story, but there are always more developments occurring, more surprises around the corner and new characters entering the battle on both sides.
The Cadicle Series should appeal to every classical science fiction fan and to every reader who just loves a good military/political adventure story. 5-Stars. Clabe Polk

Who is Saera? Is she really girl from Earth with strong powers of telekinesis when few from Earth possess any powers at all. And why is the mutual attraction between her and Wil so strong? Will encounters Saera while he struggles with conflicting assignments from Commander Banks a completing his assignments leading to graduation as a full-fledged TSS Agent. Will remains uncomfortable with what he knows of his destiny and his need to find alternative solutions asserts itself during his TSS internship. In Saera, Will finds a friend and confidante, but who is she? The reader is left with that question hanging in the air as Colonel Tek assassinates General Carzen and becomes General Tek, the military Commander-in-Chief of the Bakzen.
Every bit as intriguing as the two previous installments, Bonds of Resolve continues to build on the tension of the war with the Bakzen and hint at the coming confrontation with the Priesthood. Every classical science fiction fan should love it! 5-Stars, Clabe Polk

Sci-fi fans will not be disappointed. I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this read but I found that the plot has a common theme. A teen feels unloved, out of place in his home, runs away to see the world and find himself. The setting is science fiction. The world that it takes place in: planets, space stations and supporting characters were all well thought out and described. This is only Part I so the story may develop more in the upcoming series.

Cris is a teen born to inherit a High Dynasty, however, he really wants no part of it. He feels that his parents were grooming his older brother that died for the part and Cris just doesn't meet their expectations. They don't want him to develop his special abilities which bothers Cris. Why can't he be who he is? Why should he hide part of himself? He plans to leave his home planet and learn more about the rest of the world before he has to take over his duties as his father's heir.

In Cris's world there are 6 High Dynasties. Each specialize in some kind of technology or need for people on other planets, ie: navigation technology, communication technology, clothing, food, etc. The Dynasties are supposed to rule and do whatever is beneficial for the people on other planets. The Priesthood is the silent ruler though and they have plans for Cris and his abilities.

As the story develops there is an undercurrent of secrets that does make it more intriguing. Amy Dubhoff does show promise as a writer and in reading Architects of Destiny the reader can tell that she enjoys this genre.

I received this book free from the author for review purposes. If you wish to learn more about Amy check out http://amyduboff.com/index.html

This second book in the series is much more complex than the first. The details of this universe are revealed slowly, pulling the reader deeper into the story with each chapter. Duboff paces everything so well that you reach the end before you get all the answers, thus the need to read book three. The main characters, although well within the standards for space opera heroes, have a uniqueness to them that is charming. I prefer Conan or Riddick though, they are not so sensitive and they don’t cry.

This is a crisp, well-written beginning to a young adult space opera.