Starcraft: Queen of Blades (Starcraft)

List Price: $7.99 Discount Price: $3.89

Customer Reviews:

It's disgusting but I can't stop reading! =)) [Posted on 2007-05-24]
This book explains the tranformation of captured Kerrigan to the Queen of Blades. As Jimmy, how Kerrigan called James Rayner, travelled thousand of lightyears to save his love from the Zergs only to learn that he was a little bit too late as Kerrigan swore her new alliance to the Zergs. The novel reached its peak where Kerrigan convinced Rayner and his men to return from whence they came as she now belongs to the Zergs. Everything was explained in great detail, the sad fate that separated James Rayner from the love of his life.

Pretty Good [Posted on 2007-06-08]
This book is pretty good. I am only about half way done though. I like how it is following the story that was in the game. It get you a little deeper into the story than the game did. so so far its pretty good.

Worst StarCraft book [Posted on 2008-02-16]
This book proves the good old saying that quantity is not quality.
Although this book is probably the longest of all StarCraft novels it is a really disappointing read.

The very begining may just be a little interesting but after Jim Raynor reaches planet Char, it starts to feel boring and even stupid. The big scene when Kerrigan emerges from the chrystalis is in the first two chapters, whereas I think it shoud have been the culmination of the story. The very annoying thing was that the author decided to put the main character - Raynor - into every possible place even in stupidest circumstances. A real StarCraft fan would just cry out of anger for such ridiculous portrayal of the events on Char. Moreover, the battle scenes are also pathetic, it seems as if the writer was doing some kind of statistics work, he just writes how many fought and how many died, and descibes the action with only few mere sentences.

How good can a novel be if the best part of this book is the preview for the other StarCraft story "Ghost:Nova"!?

I have read a lot of books, a whole lot of sci-fi, and I can assure you this is the worst book I have read in my life. Even picture-books for children or fairy tales are more interesing!
Unless you have to have this piece of paper as a collection item, I suggest you not to buy it.

Queen of Yawn-- Well, kinda. [Posted on 2008-02-20]
Starcraft fans seem to have two opinions about this book: either it sucks, or it rocks. I find myself in the middle--

I'll try to explain what parts were good, and which were boring and really weird, at least for me (you need to know a tad bit about the Stacraft storyline, though, plus, there are some SPOILERS ahead).

So, the beginning is awesome, it's cool, has a lot of details and explains how Raynor got to Char at the beginning of the Zerg campaing in the Starcraft game. It also tells us a lot about how Jimmy has been striving to cope with the loss of Kerrigan since the end of the Terran campaing. I found this part, up until Raynor gets stranded on Char and all, to be really interesting and captivating--specially the parts that describe Raynor's new found role as a leader. Yeah, it was cool.

Let it be known, however, the book should've ended there, while it still could. Seriously.

The rest, up until the very final battle (which, apparently takes place in the 'Eye for an Eye' scenario from the Zerg Campaign), is extremely tedious and boring, and quite weird. I mean, just plain weird.

Let me explain: it felt like an endless tale of how Jimmy runs around 're-living' every dialogue that happened in the game, line by line, whith some minor changes to the story and some added encounters, while spying the elusive Protoss and the Zerg on Char.

Seriously, that's all he does for almost every page.
He goes around, spying on both Protoss and Zerg, watching how they fight, how the Protoss run away, hide, fight again, run away, hide, fight again, and so on and so on--whith Jimmy following all the way, trying to convince the Protoss to ally him against the Zerg and to get him and his men out of Char.
He sometimes talks to Tassadar, and has some dreams about Kerrigan (they have a psychic link of sorts, which is explained later in the book)-- but it was more like a National Geographic documentary than anything else. A really boring one.

Now, don't get me wrong, the book obviously has some new info and added storyline, but being sincere, it wasn't that much nor that good.
I just felt like getting this huge amount of filler and game scenes that I already knew all about. Sure, I appreciated the extra info and all, but again, it wasn't that interesting nor important.

Anyways, after 12 chapters of spying and chasing (there are 20 in total, plus the epilogue; the first 4 are cool, the last 4 are 'normal'--the rest pretty much felt like filler), Jimmy finally finds the Protoss and asks them to help him so he can help them against the Zerg. From here on we are given this weak clichéd subplot of how the Terrans befriend the Protoss and how Tassadar, Zeratul and Jimmy become Super Friends.

Next we have a huge final battle between our three Musketeers and Kerrigan, which, according to the book, ends in a draw or something--with Kerrigan saying something like: 'I'll be back!' and Zeratul replying: 'We'll se about that'--I mean, come on, what was that?--

And the epilogue is so corny.
Everyone finally appears (this roughly takes place in the fourth scenario of the Protoss campaing): Aldaris, Artanis (who apparently is 'you' in the Protoss campaign), and even the Hyperion, Raynor's capital ship, which had to leave Char because the Zerg were attacking it, the reason why Jimmy and his men are stranded there in the first place--but seriously, all in the final chapter? Damn, that's what I call a coincidense; a pretty weak constructed coincidense.
It was more like they wanted to end the book as soon as possible.


And that's it. That's basically what happens.
So, in conclusion, it isn't a horrible Stacraft book, I mean, it isn't Shadow of the Xel'Naga, but it isn't that good either--plus, the writing isn't something to die for. It has a couple of interesting stuff and expands a lot about Jimmy's relationship with Tassadar, Zeratul and Kerrigan (maybe the only worthwhile aspect of this book), but it's nothing really important to the general storyline--I mean, it felt that way for me.

Personally, when I finished the book, it felt nice to have read it, but only because it was a book about Starcraft. The cold reality was I was left with this weird void, like, I read the whole book and yet learned nothing really imporant, nothing that I didn't already know thanks to other sources--so, yeah, it felt like an apparent waste of time. Not a total waste of time, mind you, but it was very close to be one.

So, yeah, I recommend it--but you have been warned!

A deep disappointment. [Posted on 2008-09-09]
The subject of Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, is probably the deepest and most intense in the entire universe Starcraft is set in. I can't think of anyone I've talked to who has played through the game's campaigns and not both loved and hated her. She inspires awe and fear, passion and disgust; her dual nature makes her a fascinating subject. I will elaborate on it no more... on to the book.

Mr. Rosenberg did a good enough job piecing together the events of what happens between Kerrigan's capture by the Zerg and James Raynor's trip to Char to save her, finding himself in the company of the new Dominion forces and the Protoss. This is all very interesting and a good story to tell, but Mr. Rosenberg really just puts glue between the cracks from the original campaign and does almost no elaboration. Raynor feels protective of his troops and repeatedly "announces" it through narrative, but there is no development to really establish this on a firm ground--it's just something we have to accept. Even his relationship with Kerrigan feels held up only by the video game: Rosenberg's prose about their relationship resorts to cliches about love combined with cheap horror. He repeatedly cites Kerrigan's in-game line, "You pig!", as if that completely explains the sexual tension Raynor and Kerrigan experience before her abduction and transformation.

Truly, the best parts of this book--the parts that allow it to have at least two stars from me--involve the Protoss, who really don't develop into full characters until the last third of the book. That Raynor manages to repeatedly find them by wandering off into Char's vast desert is incredibly hard to believe (never mind that Char has edible, easily harvested flora, fauna, and water), but thank God he does, because they are the most interesting things on the drab planet Rosenberg has presented us with. Tassadar's initial skepticism of the Dark Templar and Zeratul's confrontation of Zasz and then Kerrigan work to develop what finally turns into a decent plot in the book, and the months the two Protoss factions and the Terrans spend together avoiding Kerrigan are the most exciting, as we see juxtaposed the merging of minds of Zeratul and Tassadar and the constant engagement of and retreat from Kerrigan's brood.

The climax of the book occurs with a "final battle" that truly is engaging, as the Protoss devise a way to lure Kerrigan's entire brood into a trap using Raynor as a conduit of their mental trickery. Kerrigan is nearly killed by the heroes, but all the same she flexes her muscles and puts them each in their places. Afterward, the inevitable recovery of Tassadar and the others by Judicator Aldaris is explained, and the plot is left to thicken.

If it weren't for so much going on in the latter third of the book, there would be nothing to read here. The writing remains elementary throughout, but at least the story is engaging and new towards the end rather than constantly regurgitative.

Still, the book's greatest failure, its lack of development of Kerrigan's character, its thrust forward into her transformation without dramatic pause (we only see glimpses of this in the prologue and Jim's dreams, and they, like many of the emotions in the book, are written in heavy cliche), is inexcusable. The next book featuring Kerrigan needs a writer who can develop her emotional conflicts in a mature and captivating way.

Two out of five stars for the decent plot at the end and the elucidation of Zeratul and Tassadar's first encounter. Otherwise... a deep disappointment.

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