Conquerors' Pride (The Conquerors Saga Book 1)

I used to own this in a paperback, and had to sell this trilogy and most of my other books, and was never able to replace them.It's awesome to be able to read again, these old favorites.

This book is a big information dump. A new setting, technology, aliens and several political structures. Looks like it Wil get a great story arc.

This is a review of the entire trilogy.Great popcorn read, a space opera with a fun intellectual twist. Humanity is spread across a couple of dozen worlds and finally make first contact with an alien race, only to find that the aliens want to kill us. Pretty standard, so far.The really interesting part is how Zahn develops the “antagonists”. The second book takes place from the point of view of one of the aliens, and there is a unique and significant aspect to their culture and physiology that is the hidden thread throughout the entire series. This hidden thread is an interesting thought experiment that doesn’t undermine or detract from the overall space opera.The main characters aren’t as well-developed as we might like, but they seem like decent, courageous people and are easy to root for. While the second book is comparatively slow, the series overall has the much the same action/world-developing tenor as many of the better Star Wars books (like Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy).

A lot of people say that Timothy Zahn is a brilliant writer. I'm not convinced of that whatsoever. I have read his Star Wars series (including the more recent novels), and agree that those are at least interesting reads, though with significant slow points.I originally read the Conquerors' trilogy in high school. At the time, it seemed like a wonderful story. Recently I had the desire to go back and read it again. I was so irritated by the writing and lack of imagination that I had to force myself to get through the novels. I can understand the desire to make characters relateable, particularly if your story is set in the very far future. But in doing so in a sloppy way just makes the characters seem sloppily put-together. For example, Lord Cavanaugh seems like an interesting character until you realize that he doesn't change; he's a flat character throughout the series. How is that possible? He is integral to the story arc, and yet he doesn't morph through the knowledge he attains. Adam Quinn is also a very interesting character initially. He's a decorated soldier who arguably betrayed his fellow soldiers, and perhaps could even be called a traitor. What he did in the past is directly relateable to some of the Wikileaks conduct today.But then you realize that Quinn too is a flat character. He's duty-bound and that's it. At the beginning of the 3rd book he returns to professional soldiering. But that decision isn't given any more than a cursory nod. There was a good reason why he left the military, and there has to be a compelling reason for him to go back. We are never given his emotional turmoil and thus the impact of his decision is insignificant.That is perhaps my first of two major issues with this series. There is no emotional connection with the characters. Conquerors' Pride has some wonderful parts where you could begin to emote with Pheylan. But that is never carried full circle, and in the end we're just left watching from the sidelines instead of really experiencing what he experiences. There is no emotional connection with Lord Cavanaugh, once again because he doesn't really feel or change. Melinda is perhaps the only character who seems both intelligent and capable. Yet, she is given very little opportunity to face challenges and come into her own.My second big issue with this series is its childish writing. There is little attempt to make this scientifically plausible or even imaginatively creative. The aliens are given names but their motives and conduct is very human. I suppose that's possible, but it doesn't give the reader the feeling that the aliens truly are alien. By counterexample, I would recommend Alastair Reynolds, whose books speak of and sometimes describe aliens. In Reynolds' books, the aliens are truly aliens--their conduct and motives are unusual and sometimes surprising. You don't really get that type of feeling from Zahn's writing in this series.There is a lot that could and should have been done with this series. I think that Conquerors' Heritage was a brilliant idea; telling the story from the other perspective was very refreshing. Of the three books, I think that Heritage is the best. I would have preferred a deeper exploration of the alien culture and dynamics, but what Zahn wrote was sufficient to pique my interest. However, the interest pretty much waned at the end of Heritage, and Legacy did nothing to reinvigorate it.I think Zahn is a good writer. He's not great. He has written some very disappointing novels, and the Conquerors' series falls right in line with that. I'm giving the series 2 stars because of the nostalgia, and because there are some very good points scattered about in the books. It's worth a read once. Just don't expect too much.As an alternative, or comparison, I suggest reading Alastair Reynolds and Neal Asher--two of my favorite authors, who have deep worlds and round characters.

Really enjoyed this SciFi/fantasy novel! Already bought and started the second in the series!

Lasers and futuristic talk of space travel are joined with the looming mystery. The main character is not a character, but an entity, with a delicious plot twist at the end.

This is start of a trilogy about a human interstellar confederacy first contact with a hostile, seemingly technologically superior alien race. It's ok - a few cool ideas, a few mysterious elements, and I'm split as to whether I will read the next in the trilogy. Like everything else of Zahn's I've read, it is pretty light reading, no deep thoughts, moves from one thing to another, he has a habit of recapitulating key plot points every now and then just in case you forgot, and he pulls some plot twists pretty much out of nowhere, as in things that are consistent with the plot but no way you could have guessed them from the preceding text. Case in point here, Lord Cavanagh pulls out a Major Reveal pretty much out of nowhere toward the end. Anyway, I found the most interesting parts to be Pheylan's interactions with the Conquerors, and unfortunately these were the slimmest segments of the book. The segments dealing with the other Cavanaghs were all kind of dull in their own way. And I felt like the resolution of the conflicts for the first entry in the trilogy all just sort of happened spontaneously, like the author had a page target and found himself 90% of the way there and said ok, time to wrap this up!

I liked the storyline

Timothy Zahn ist ein absoluter Weltklasse-Schreiber, jedoch hat er sich mit dieser Serie nicht mit Ruhm bedeckt.Die angeführten Ideen sind frisch, interessant und "nett", aber der wirkliche Funke will einfach nicht überspringen.Ich kann diese Romanserie daher nur für Hardcore Science-Fiction Fans empfehlen, allen anderen wird wahrscheinlich langweilig werden.Ich selbst lese fast nur SF, überlege mir jeoch ernsthaft, ob ich den dritten Roman noch zu Ende lesen soll, da sich die Story einfach im Sand verläuft und man nicht mehr richtig dranbleiben will.Schade...

This book is one of a trilogy, which takes you through a first contact experience gone very badly wrong.The way in which the story unfolds, initially through he eyes of the humans, then in the next book through the eyes of the aliens, clearly has been carefully thought through. In fact, the trilogy's structure challenges you to rethink your views of the aliens and humans alike as you progress from one book to the next. In fact, its hard not to take a firm stance on who's fault the whole mess was in one book and then reverse that stance in the second.I happened to start on the second book, so initially read the story from the aliens point of view...and i was thinking "tsk..just like humans...pah!", but then as i read the first book i could understand why the humans acted and reacted in the way that they did.The third book, ties it all together and pretty much everyone lives happily ever after.The only criticism I would give of this book, is that there is a particular species who seem to be deeply involved in everything, but their motivations are never really explained and civilisation never really explored. It left me thinking...."so why are they doing that? Whats in it for them? Who are these people?"...which pulled me a little out of the storyI guess if i had to give it another criticism, it would be the structure of the story, which ironically for me is also one of its great strengths. What i mean is this. Its very difficult to pick up one of these books and go "oh that was a nice story...but not sure ill bother with the rest of the books".The problem is, either of the first two books only give one side of half the story...so you arnt given the tools to judge whether the whole story is nice or not. To fully understand the story you definately have to read the first two books. I guess then you can make your mind up on whether you want to read the third and see how it ends...Mind you...i really enjoyed them all...so what do i care? :)

Excellent story, bought full trilogy, good condition.

I've previously read the latter two books in this trilogy, and really enjoyed them...so thought I should work backwards and see how the series started. Overall, it's a little disappointing to be honest. The second and third books go into the alien race a lot more, without knowledge of how those books play out this is just a bog standard sci fi book.

Very nice story, very nice written and great characters shaping. Going to read the next part of this great trilogy.