{"id":618,"date":"2017-09-07T16:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T22:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=618"},"modified":"2017-09-10T16:12:01","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T22:12:01","slug":"book-fire-with-fire-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/07\/book-fire-with-fire-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Fire with Fire (2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1386923235l\/19426786.jpg\" alt=\"Fire with Fire\" width=\"314\" height=\"475\" \/>Fire with Fire<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nYear: 2013<br \/>\nAuthor: Charles E. Gannon<br \/>\nLength: 656 pages<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not sure which is more boring in a book: a plot that doesn\u2019t go anywhere, or a main character who is perfect. Unfortunately, <em>Fire with Fire<\/em> has both. I\u2019ll first start with my qualms about the plot. This story started way too late, as it didn\u2019t get interesting until halfway through. Even when it <em>did<\/em> finally get interesting, it suddenly became bogged down in committee. Seriously? Didn\u2019t we learn anything from the <em>Star Wars<\/em> prequels? Adding politics to a story about traveling across space merely makes it tedious. This is also not to mention how heavy and clunky the exposition is, with almost every chapter being filled with information that isn\u2019t important, and the jumps between chapters needing way more explanation.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, let\u2019s take a look at \u201cMr. Perfect,\u201d Caine Riordan. Aside from the egregious fact that the POV switched between 1<sup>st<\/sup> person and 3<sup>rd<\/sup> person within most of the paragraphs of his section (with no italics or indication that we were suddenly in Caine\u2019s head), I felt this character was just the author\u2019s way to show how smart he is. With the expansive repertoire of high-value vocabulary words and a character that always knows what to do all the time and has all the correct answers, I ended up not caring about any of it by the end. And I haven\u2019t even mentioned the blatant and pervasive misogyny either.<\/p>\n<p>Even the rest of the supporting cast was so flat and one-dimensional that I probably couldn\u2019t tell you who they were or what their defining characteristics were (aside from that one mysterious guy who LOVED olives and feta cheese). Most of the time I was reading this book, I kept wondering, \u201cWait . . . what?\u201d as what seemed to be major plot points were introduced then almost immediately forgotten until hundreds of pages later. I\u2019m not sure how this book managed to get a series tacked on to it, or how it was even nominated for a Nebula Award, but it gives me encouragement that I could write something <em>way<\/em> better than this.<\/p>\n<p>Antiquated sci-fi tropes in a recently written book, I give <em>Fire with Fire<\/em> 2.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h1><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fire with Fire Year: 2013 Author: Charles E. Gannon Length: 656 pages I\u2019m not sure which is more boring in a book: a plot that doesn\u2019t go anywhere, or a main character who is perfect. Unfortunately, Fire with Fire has both. I\u2019ll first start with my qualms about the plot. This story started way too [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,54],"tags":[121,55,808,807,810,809,8,337,235,811],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-0-stars","category-book","tag-121","tag-book","tag-charles-e-gannon","tag-fire-with-fire","tag-misogyny","tag-nebula-award-nominee","tag-review","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction","tag-tales-of-the-terran-republic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}