StarCraft #2: Shadow of the Xel'Naga

List Price: $7.99 Discount Price: $2.50

Customer Reviews:

poor, sometimes interesting [Posted on 2006-06-25]
A number of other reviewers seemed rather worried about how this book explored a plot that wasn't part of the game. That didn't bother me much, whilst I shouldn't have minded if it had done so the original content was appreciated.

However, most of the battle sequences, which make up a fair amount of the book, are incredably dull to read. The most interesting battle scene was the villagers Vs the Zerg, although completly unrealistic it used a variety of people with interesting and new weapons innovating, it at least started to feel like a real battle.

Most of the other battle scenes didn't seem any more lifelike than the computer game. They were just as if I was describing what had happened in a game I had played recently rather than coming to life in thier own right. Long repeated descriptions of the units of Starcraft and thier armenants, with 'that shot this, then this shot that, than that shot this' does not make for good reading at all! Rather than inspiring me to think of a real three dimensional battle, as might go on a film, my mind ended up thinking of the battle as if I was watching it on my computer.

I've played the computer game already, I've been in those battles first hand, if I'm reading a novel I need something more than that. You need to outdo the expierence of battles on the computer screen, and to be honest, if a book fails to do that (given that Starcraft is just a gods eye view strategy game at the end of the day, its not as if the visuals are that outstanding), then that's pretty poor going.

The most enjoyable parts are the characters and thier interactions, but these appear to be the most undevoloped parts of the book.

Anderson dreck [Posted on 2007-05-21]
I've read the first and second (this) StarCraft novels and I wish Blizzard would stop hiring lousy writers, as they do such good stories for the games that it's a great pity to waste the novels. Granted, I don't like Kevin J. Anderson ("Gabriel Mesta") anyway, but I didn't know it was his pseudonym at the time I read this book. It's even worse than his Young Jedi Knights stuff.

Average read Nr. 2 [Posted on 2008-01-12]
The second book of the 'StarCraft' series is different from the first one.

It isn't as linear as 'Liberty's Crusade' and doesn't try to squeeze its story somewhere in the original game plot as the first book did unsuccessfully and irritatingly even.

Some parts of 'Shadow of Xel'naga' are really not bad and entertaining but I found two annoying flaws.

The first one is that the book very often tends to repeat itself. The chapters are very short and feature lots of different characters and therefore the author is constantly repeating what had happened and what someone had felt. On and on and on... Like a schoolmate crawling to write the required amount of words for an essay.

The second minus - the very end is too fairy-talish. Too happy. Verdant meadows and reincarnated people? Come on... 'StarCraft' Is not a cartoon for children or a tale before going to sleep.

And so, it's another average sci-fi book.

Average in every way [Posted on 2008-02-17]
Now, I will say that I agree that this book does NOT follow the lore of Starcraft well. I noticed this within the first few chapters. So I pretty much pretended I knew nothing of all the lore of Starcraft. Most people seem to REALLY WANT it to be strict on this, and I think that hurts any enjoyment that can be had from this. Most reviewers seem almost emotionally hurt that it wasn't all that they wanted.


Now as for the book itself. It was pretty much average in every way. It had a typical story line. It even had a fairy-tale ending that just kind of left me a bit bewildered as to why it HAD to be a happy ending; it sort of hurt the flow of the book (what little flow there was).

There is some enjoyable chapters, mainly the first half of the book. But when the battle begins, it just kinda falls apart.

It was good enough for me to finish, but that's about it.

No, seriously. [Posted on 2008-02-20]
This book is as bad as Stacraft can get in a written form.
There is not much I can add to the other reviews here, however, I can only support their claims.

This book is just written in such a way that discards anything remotely accurate about Stacraft. The whole 'epic' feeling about the three races fighting each other fails in such a way that makes me feel bad, and all I did was read the book--Seriously, there's only one interesting thing about this book, and it's the 'new alien created by the Xel'Naga' thing that appears at the end, which is, in fact, what the three races are fighting for.

Yeah, that's it, so, I just saved you a lot of time--now don't read this book, stay away from it.

Oh, I wish I had never bought it--or read it, for that matter.
Lets just say it isn't even canon, or if it is, lets just forget about this book and keep the major raw facts of what happened in it.

In fact, someone get me a Biohazard label to put it on the book.

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