an interesting idea that didn't quite make it for me. perhaps part of the problem was the overuse of "words" from another planet/civilisation that were never properly explained anywhere, but used throughout the book. a few were easy to figure out, but not all... there also seemed a bit of issue with continuity from time to time... ( )

This is classic science fiction in the vein of Asimov, Anderson, Niven … including 1950s American attitudes to gender and morality as well as internalised homophobia.

While reading Ambassador 1:Seeing Red, I’ve been guilty of putting it down and not thinking about it for a few days (or even weeks) before I would pick it up again. And honestly, the reason why I would continue reading it is for this review. So, yea, you guessed it, I’d Skip it, if I were you.

But the question in my mind was why did I find it so un-engaging? The book started with a bang (literally – a bomb blew up) with ramifications for our protagonist and the wider world. It’s true that I didn’t know much about the world or the main character before the explosion, so that did make it harder to put it into context. I mean, maybe these things happen all the time… But as I continued reading and I got to know the characters and the world better, I still found it hard to care.

And then it hit me, the character had no impact on the world. Things were happening to him. To be fair, he was trying to do things, but every time he was met with excuses and delay tactics and… Well, it was not interesting to read.

There was even a high speed car chase, but again our protagonist was sitting in the back seat… and that’s how the book feels, you’re not reading about the driver, you’re reading about the guy in the back seat. ( )

Excellent but and world building made this an absorbing read. It was well written. I liked the pace, plot, characters, detail and scenes. ( )

Great first book. I'll be keeping an eye out for the rest of the series as I go about filling my kindle. The World building was good, though I still got lost a few times on who was who, and such. Bound to happen in sci-fi, especially as big as this universe is.

Overall a good read, though there was a lot of narration to move the story along, where I'd have prefered dialogue or actual action. ( )