Book Review: Generation Warriors - Anne McCaffrey

Okay, so we've reached the third entry in the Planet Pirates trilogy.

Generation Warriors was written by Anne McCaffrey and co-authored, once again, by Elizabeth Moon. Now, cards on the table, I really didn’t like this book. I’ll get to the reasons in a bit, but for now, all I can say is that I really didn’t care for this book.

What's the Story?

Generation Warriors is the final chapter in the Planet Pirates trilogy and follows Sassinak and her great-grandmother Lunzie Mespil as they move to take down the planet pirates once and for all.

A court case for the mutiny – presumably on Ireta – is coming up wherein Sassinak, Lunzie, and a few others are being called as witnesses. This case could bust the planet piracy syndicate wide open. Before all that, however, they set about gathering information to take down the pirates and their suspected sponsors.

What Did I Like?

As always, the writing style is easy to follow and the story is pretty good.

The characters are more or less likable all around with more or less believable relationship dynamics between them. I particularly liked how Sassinak and Lunzie had to sort of figure out their own familial relationship issues.

Comedy relief is mostly alright, but it does fall flat a few times.

The action scenes were, as is often the case with McCaffrey’s work, fantastically done. They were fast-paced, visceral, and brutal in some cases.

In terms of the conspiracy part of the story, I liked the idea that multiple parties were involved, and there’s a level of scale to the whole thing that is just cool to imagine.

What Didn’t I Like?

As much as I like Anne McCaffrey’s work – and I do – this is definitely one of her weaker novels. I can’t say anything about Elizabeth Moon as I’ve never read any of her solo work, but Generation Warriors is definitely not as good as its predecessors. I said before that I didn’t really care for this book; let’s look at why.

Much like Sassinak, the two authors’ styles have certain points where they just don’t mesh very well, which makes what should’ve been an exciting read a real slog to get through.

The story is, to put it kindly, fragmented. In the end, you’re following Sassinak and Lunzie and two of Sassinak’s crewmen: Ford and Dupaynil (weird name).

• Lunzie is on Diplo – the home planet of the Heavy Worlders – to ostensibly study the effects of cold sleep on the locals' bodies while looking to dig up dirt on possible ties to the planet pirates.
• Sassinak is off doing her commander thing, en-route to the central courts for the trial of Tanegli (the mutineer – I’ll come back to this in a second).
• Ford is visiting is distant great-aunt Quesada to get information on her ties to the Paradens – one of the families suspected of being tied to the planet pirates.
• Dupaynil gets the short straw and ends up bouncing around the place looking for information and narrowly avoiding being murdered before ending up captured.

This fragmentation isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it’s a pain in the neck because it’s damn near impossible to keep up with! Which brings me to the next problem: the pacing.

The pacing is horrendous! Every character’s storyline has a different pace and it causes a sense of tonal whiplash. One minute you’re cruising along fairly quickly and then you’ve ground to the halt.

There are also several side characters that just come and go, and they just tend to drag the story down. Speaking of characters, who the hell is this Tanegli guy? I don’t remember him from either of the two previous books. Unless he’s someone who shows up in the Ireta novels (Dinosaur Planet and Dinosaur Planet Survivors), then I don’t know who he is, and that really irritates me!

Also which mutiny are they talking about? I don’t remember Tanegli in The Death of Sleep, so is it that mutiny? Is it a different one?

The ending of the book also felt like a total cop-out to me.

Is it Worth Reading?

So, to summarize we’ve got:

• 2 writing styles which sometimes don’t mesh well
• A fragmented plot
• Horrible pacing issues
• Pointless side characters that just serve to slow things down
• A confusing mutiny charge leveled against a character I’ve never encountered in the previous two books
• A cop-out ending which only barely resolves all the various plot lines

Is this book, with all its problems, really worth reading? Well…yes and no. If you want to know what happens at the end of the series, then you’ll have to read the series’ conclusion – as convoluted as it is. On the other hand, the other two stories function well enough as standalone novels, so if you would rather have the more concise stories, then you have the option to forego reading the third installment.

Final Thoughts: the Harshest Review Yet…

Of all the reviews I’ve done on one of Anne McCaffrey’s books, this is the harshest one I've done yet. The sad thing is that this book could’ve been so much better if they’d just fleshed out the characters and the world a bit more. They probably could’ve written a few more books/short stories that lead up to Generation Warriors and gotten a more concise story when it finally came around – I mean, The Tower and the Hive lasted for 5 books, why not do the same here?

If I could play devil’s advocate for a moment, I will admit that at least McCaffrey and Moon were trying, and for all its faults, that effort shows. It’s just a shame that what came out of that effort was a lackluster mess of convoluted plotlines and pointless characters.