It's bad and cheesy. The writing is clunky (I can't tell if it's the translator) and there are whole chapters that read like cliff notes or a history book with dry exposition. Characters are cartoonish, tension in the wholly predictable plot non-existant. What it's got going for it is how ridiculous it is.

The plot boils down to a bunch of plucky rebels from the democratic alliance fighting space Hitler leading the Fourth Reich. Surprisingly little SF in this story, it's mostly about military intrigue with a sprinkling of medieval style battles (except in space!). Honestly, it would translate seamlessly into a medieval fantasy setting without losing anything. ( )

While this book was published this year, it was originally published in Japan decades ago, and it shows. I still enjoyed the book, but it suffers from some pacing problems. It definitely avoids the "rah-rah military over sheeple civilians" problem some mil-SF runs into, though the best works of Japanese mil-sf tends not to have that problem. ( )

So for that most part this book plays out like a shounen story. Each leader is super smart and powerful and knows how to out maneuver the regulars only with space ships and armadas. Only a shounen story told more intelligently and without 99% of the misogyny.

Don't get me wrong. Tanaka's views are rutted in the past, with the men doing everything and being the heirs of everything. However looking at some of his other works. it looks like maybe his views evolved over time since this was written in the 80s. Even then the women in this book usually have agency, like Greenhill, Windsor and an upcoming character. They are smart, some ambitions and feel as fleshed out (or un-fleshed out) as the male characters are. He does seem to describe the women by their looks, but not grossly so like modern light novels.

As for the shounen part. Our two main characters "power up" every so often, done by ranks and gaining ships and people. It's done in a believable way and not like some inane "The power level of my ship is over 9000!"; through actual use of tactics and maneuvering. Now that part that feels shounen-y is the ass pulls that these leaders do. Like Kircheis suddenly having Siffl particles to get through the minefield. Yang being the only smart one capable of holding his own, Yang being able to beat the BLack Lancers because of W/Bittenfeld's sheer brain dump of tactics. Mind you that W/Bittenfeld was built up to be some kind of powerhouse too. So yes there's a bit of that shounen flavor going on with the ass pull wins. The text itself however focuses on the people mostly than the fighting and if they are fighting, it's mostly on how the people fight and not on tech specs of the guns and how they are exactly tearing apart the ships every single blast. Some is mentioned, but only for effect.

Really I would read this before starting the anime, or read along to the anime as there is a lot more explained in the book that you might not get watching the anime. ( )

Humanity is divided. The Galactic Empire is ruled by a dictator while the Free Planets Alliance desires democracy and autonomy from the Galactic Empire. The great imperial army will have none of that and seeks to force the rebels (Free Planets Alliance) back into the Galactic Empire. Two great military geniuses will face off again and again as this war rages on. Reinhard von Lohengramm fights for the Empire even as Yang Wen-li fights for the Alliance.

This book held a lot of promise and I was pretty excited to get my hands on a review copy. However, I was underwhelmed by it. While we have the two main military geniuses, there are many, many side characters and more and more get pulled into the story as the tale progresses. However, most of them are given little more than a name and station; I often felt like they were merely being described as game pieces. I found that I never really got attached to any of the characters. So this made it difficult to care about their motives or the outcomes of the few action scenes.

I was excited by the big sweeping background. There’s obviously generations of history built into the backstory of how this conflict came about. All of that comes through clearly. I was pretty intrigued by those characters that have engineered bits (like a replacement bionic eye) and the politics of the two factions concerning that. However, that turned out to be a very small part of the book and little was done with it. Much of the book is spent on characters contemplating the politics of the situation and this made the story rather slow for me.

I did enjoy that Yang is a fan of tea and that his ward, Julian, is rather fussy about how to make Yang’s tea. There’s also plenty of ethnicities represented by the characters. However, there are few female characters and they are often in support roles and/or romance interests. Their looks were usually the first (and sometimes the only thing) mentioned. Some of them, like Yang’s aide de camp Fredericka Greenhill, were given additional attributes. Women are allowed to serve in both militaries, but only in background, non-combat roles. This made me sigh. First, it’s fiction and we’re in the 21st century and women can be cast in lead military roles without ruffling feathers. Second, when an entire gender is cast in only support roles, this makes those characters rather predictable and that can make the story predictable.

The whole book was a meh for me. I have heard that this book first came out as a manga and I think that might be more interesting. I may or may not check that out at the library.

I received a copy at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Narration: Tim Gerard Reynolds does a good job with the numerous accents. However, in between dialogue, he tends to fall into a monotone, making him sound a bit bored with the book too. I really liked how he made Julian sound young and fussy. I also loved how his accents weren’t necessarily dictated by a character’s last name or his looks. After all, it’s a big galaxy and an Asian looking man can sound like a Tennessee gentleman. ( )

The rating here is for the TRANSLATION as I read a fan translation of the novel before.
For that review go here.

However ViZ/Haikasoru decided to treat us all like we are kids and give it the "Let's modernize old sci-fi and make it modern cuz people r dum!" or something.
I'm sure the people reading this book all know that it was written in the 80s and that the anime is from the 80s, so changing the fact that Julian was reading republished books to "e-copies" is kind of a slap in the face to our intelligence. They don't even stay consistent with the changes as 3D television was changed to... something else, however later in the book we are back to 3D displays.
Also suddenly we have to VERY SPECIFICALLY point out that the gunners are using touch screens? That was not in the original and I can only think the "e-gram"toward the end of the book is another 'vizlation'. (My fan version cuts off after chapter 7)

Let me also get it out of the way that the UC (Universal Calendar) was changed to SE (Space Era). There is no explanation to why ViZ did it that way. I can only think because of Gundam. However I think I will just go with. "Because ViZ like to change and censor things and this is REALLY apparent in their manga." I am hoping the wiki sites out there will keep the "UC" as that is used in the original novels, the anime and the gaidens and make some note how ViZ is being silly.

Still to modernize a book written in the 80s reeks of treating us like children in how Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are rewritten for then to all have cell phones and such.

Also they seem to like to use big words for no reason other than Sci-Fi likes to use big words for no reason.
Also++ they seem hooked on the word "countenance" when talking about people's face like DMP does in their Vampire Hunter D [bc:Vampire Hunter D|16599|Vampire Hunter D|Hideyuki Kikuchi|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1302669309s/16599.jpg|18277] books.

Overall though the translation doesn't seem to meander from what is written. Nor does it seem to add flavor text like I hear some of TokyoPops stuff does. So I'll give them credit for not horribly mucking it up. Just if you are going to read it. Realize that it has been modernized "for the kids, yo". ( )