Conqueror's Pride by Timothy Zahn.

I've read a few Timothy Zahn books before; namely The Icarus Hunt and Spinnaret, both of which I enjoyed a fair amount, so I had high hopes for this one. It's not exactly a long book; I discovered at the end the reason for this, because it's one of a trilogy. I never really like it all that much when I discover that a book I'm reading isnt going to finish, and it wasn't very clear from the start that this was the case. Anyway. On the subject of Timothy Zahn, I must be the only person who had no idea he wrote authorised sequels to Star Wars.

So to the book itself. The story is that of the Cavanagh family. The book opens with the fleet containing the youngest, Phelyan, being attacked and captured by a mysterious alien race. The rest of the family is understandably quite miffed about this, and ask the government to rescue him. The government refuses, so they mount a private expedition. During their travels before and during said expedition, lots of interesting things happen or are discovered about the new enemy, the past history and the other races in the galaxy.

One thing I really liked about this book is the mystery surrounding everything. From the previous books I have read of Timothy Zahn's, this seems to be a common theme; the main characters do not have all the information from the start. Nor, for that matter, do the rest of the characters; the book is a story of discovery. This is good. I found I wanted to know more at each step - more about the people, more about the universe, more about the history. It has some nice plot twists, some predictable, some less so. All in all, I'd say this was a really enjoyable read.

There's not much I'd say that's bad about it either. One or two things annoyed me - when you have four chraracters from the same family, they can all be called Cavanagh. Very confusing when you don't really know which one it is. Another bad thing is the fairly abrupt ending; although actually this isnt too bad, the story does come to an end, but there's clearly a lot more to say. Effectively, this is the story of the opening part of a war, and I as a reader want to know what happens in the rest of it. Perhaps worse, there's a fair amount of hints about what will happen in the next few books; if this was a complete standalone story, those parts are unneeded, and given that sequels are not always easy to find, this is perhaps my main source of annoyence.

Still, I would still recommend this (although possibly a bit more if you knew you could read the rest of the trilogy!) It's a good universe, an interesting story, and has a good balance of excitement and character building. It's not a deep and meaningful story (although it tries to be sometimes), but it's like a good action film; its got some plot, some world and character development and some action. I think that's a good thing.

8/10