- #1
Currently just finished chapter 94 and decided to make a partway review. By the way, at the very end of chapter 94 Spoiler
they finally shared a kiss on the lips. A quick little peck.
[collapse]I have mixed feelings about this novel so far, but I want to give points to the author for how they wrote the interstellar world. This is the first time a novel setting actually felt like it was set in the interstellar world, this is the first author to mention how planets rotate and time zones are different, there are war ships that can travel at light speeds but they still need to acknowledge different hemispheres and that one side might be night while the other is day time. How due to the different planets, holidays are not like traditional ones but it's set across a week, etc due to travel/time differences. Just, simple things that are often ignored in other interstellar worlds are part of the world building here. I also love how the author mentions each planet has their own satellites, not like the moon but yet similar. I also LOVE the way the mechas are handled. There's only like 10 models in existence, they have a key that is tossed into the air and the giant mecha expands out and lands in front of them. I can almost imagine that scene from an anime. Also the realism that mechas are hard to design, that other empires might try to attack just to steal or seal new blueprints and that they are hard to manufacture and must go through rigorous testing. Just the fact that there is testing that takes a few months with a whole test team and test pilot rather than MC just brillliantly creating a new mecha and then it is instantly made and the ML will drive it brilliantly makes this novel stand out.Romance wise, very slow, slow to the point that it doesn't seem to exist in the MC's eyes. He sees ML as a colleague and maybe friend and it really isn't until like the 80s or 90s chapters that MC kind of realizes that oh, nice body and oh, I think he might be into me and I might be open to that. But pretty much as soon as MC has that thought he puts it in the back burner and thinks about mechas and some other random thing again. For anyone who likes reading romance, it's not here. The novel so far isn't really that plot heavy either, there's plot, but I've yet to feel any climax and the MC really hasn't been in any real trouble that isn't solved like, within the same hour. Even the initial misunderstanding with the ML at the beginning really didn't bring any trouble for the MC because apparently ML realizes he's changed and is happy about it.SpoilerThey also never really discuss MC's undercover for the Royal family thing. ML slowly finds out that he's being poisoned and has his pharmacy institute research an antidote but MC never fully explains about what happened to him, or plans with ML how to handle the royal family. It's just... there, but they never talk about it. ML also never explains to his admirals and etc that MC is trustworthy or what happened to the undercover thing, he just starts treating MC nice and the admirals and rest pick up on it and everyone just pretends the whole undercover spy thing never existed. That kind of bugs me since it feels like there was no resolution.
[collapse]MC is supposedly a canon fodder character, we meet the female main character in the first chapter and she's never heard from again until some time in the middle for a short meeting and then later on it's revealed she's a distant relative of ML and that's why ML isn't the male protagonist despite being so OP. I know the story is about MC and not the female protagonist, but as a protagonist she seems to have made zero impact on the world while MC's every action seems to impact the world?EDIT: I abandoned at chapter 99. I wish I could edit my star rating too. I would give it just a 3/5, the 3 for the interstellar world building and mecha concept. Minus 2 stars for the characters and plot. At c99 they've solved the royal family issue (which they've been hyping up as the major conflict of the novel) in the most anticlimactic way possible. MC and ML still behave around each other exactly as they have for the past 98 chapters except apparently there's some softness when they look at each other. I can't feel their passion for each other as lovers, I can't even feel platonic love between bros between them. I just can't imagine what the remaining 33 chapters will be like and I'm not inspired to read on anymore.
