"Peas were for pussies. Real soldiers used mashed potato."

[dannysgirlsg1]

So I finised Alliances yesterday. I have to say it's my LEAST favorite of the entire series that I've read so far. It wasn't the story that was bad - it was actually VERY good and definitely SG-1... it's a handful of other things I need to point out b/c they just irked me so much that I had trouble even getting through parts...

I'll put it behind a cut since it WILL be spoiler heavy...

 

Okie donkie, the biggest problems:

Continuity!!! Not within the story itself - everything with that flowed rather nicely. I'm talking with the continuity to the actual series. This novel takes place right after 'The Other Side', so it's EARLY S.4. At this time in the series, SG-1 doesn't know what at al-kesh is (at least it has never been brought up) and they haven't started using P90s yet. Teal'c explains what an Al-kesh is in Exodus, which of course is at the very END of S.4 (practically S.5!). And the first episode we see SG-1 using P90s in is The First Ones, which is AFTER The Other Side - several episodes after actually. Jack even makes a specific mention of using them to General Hammond. Yet in this novel, the author mentions al-keshes out the wazoo and has Sam using a P90. Now I'm NOT saying they wouldn't have been around in the series at this time, but the way it's all written it's like SG-1 is USED to seeing an al-kesh (and if they were, why would Teal'c have to explain what it is at the end of the same season in actual canon??) and that they are using P90s on every mission (which again, specifically didn't happen until The First Ones). The other continuity slip up is she makes several mentions of Sam being host to Jolinar, and how Jacob, Martouf, and Teal'c can't go to the slave farm b/c the Jaffa will sense their naquadah. Yet, Sam is the PERFECT candidate b/c she has Jolinar's memories and whatsuch. UM, HELLO - she ALSO has naquadah in her blood left over from Jolinar. Both Seth and Apophis were able to sense it, and Teal'c can as well. But it's NEVER an issue or even MENTIONED in the novel - it's like all the perks of Jolinar were remembered and the drawbacks that would've meant futzing with the plot were conveniently forgotten! I kept asking myself several times throughout this novel 'have you even WATCHED the series?! Have you done the proper research, at least??'

The use of the word 'techy' - Jack always being the one who said it. Once is perfect - very Jack. But she has him say it like five or six different times throughout the novel, and not all around the SAME time. It kinda makes it seem Jack's vocabulary is laxing - is that the ONLY word he can come up with? COME ON!

The characterizations are off, especially between Sam and Jacob, and more importantly Jack and Daniel individually. There is unsuspected and unwarrented tension between Sam and Jacob at weird parts of the story - Sam getting overtly upset and angry with her father. And OMG, Jack and Daniel. The way she characterizes them just pissed me off. Daniel is often criticized by every character, and then the way he acts through most of the novel is a bit degrading towards the Daniel we know and love. He seems like a coward and not capable of doing anything... and the way Jack sees him. It's constantly brought up that he's the archaeologist and not the soldier. No, he's not a soldier, but by season 4 I think he's proven himself to be quite a capable warrior. And again, Jack's perspective of Daniel. Despite all the tension between them and all their drama, I know Jack would never look down on Daniel like he did in this book. It was sad because it was like every character treated Daniel like he was nothing more than an extra person... Jacob says 'I hate to say it but I think Daniel's our best bet...' - WTF?! Dude, Daniel has MORE than proven he's capable of handling himself in a tough situation. The author, in regards to Jack, trys to hard with the 'lingo' and some of the sayings and -isms he uses don't flow well at all - a lot of them almost made me cringe.

The writing style is very very choppy, and the use of sentences is weird. There's parts where I was going 'wait, why is that a whole new sentence??' And it's not just in a few places - it's practically through out the whole book. I can understand it being in a FEW parts for dramatic effect, but everywhere? It just made it THAT much more of a difficult read.

A few other things that irked me was the building up of secondary characters, and then their abrupt and pointless deaths. Yeah, these authors have the license to kill their own characters in these stories, but that doesn't mean you have to just kill them off.

I didn't hate the book entirely - there were moments that were perfect SG-1 goodness, ironically the conversations and confrontations between Jack and Daniel were actually very spot on and are something I could actually picture them doing on the show. Again, the story was very good, plot wise and all. If there weren't such blaring continuity errors and bad characterizations, I definitely would've enjoyed this a lot more.

'Alliances' : B-