Going into this novel I really had no expectations, though that might be a commentary on how wary I am of late when it comes to stories that you can describe as being space opera. Be that as it may, I have a number of issues. The big one is that the dialogue seems so stilted to me for much of the book, as every conversation turns into a lecture on ideology. I was well aware that this was an exercise in Afro-Futurism, and I was cool with that, but people just don't talk that way on a regular basis.

Two, so much of what is happening in the novel seems divorced from internal context. Events just happen willy-nilly and they don't seem to matter all that much. This is particularly the case when the antagonists of the community Broaddus has sketched make their play, and they feel really cardboard.

So, if I had stuck to the "50-page" rule I probably would have set this book aside, but I did skim through to a point where things started to improve, particularly when one is following the soldier Fela Buhari; but that's about 100 pages in when I started to sense some narrative coherence begin to emerge. I finished the book liking what I was reading just enough that I'm willing to give the follow-on works a try. Though if this work doesn't turn out to be a trilogy that will be problematic; I can't see only two books (totaling about 700 pages) being sufficient to develop all the concepts that Broaddus is throwing at the reader. ( )

1 star, too far out there

SWEEP OF STARS
by Maurice Broaddus

This book was too far out into fantasy land for me. I tried repeatedly from different sections of the book, simply was unable to get interested in the story.

I received a complimentary copy of #sweepofstars from #tor I was not required to post a review. ( )