The Diamond Contessa [Kindle Edition]

Kenneth Bulmer has written a huge number of books, mostly under pseudonyms, and many short stories. I think his best work is the Dray Prescot series as Alan Burt Akers. I understand he was born in '21 in Britain; I haven't seen anything new in 5 years, and that concerns me. His SF is sometimes Britishly weird and depressing. Some is pure space opera. SF critics pan his work hard as lacking plot and "literary technique." My biggest complaint of most of his work is that he writes "natural" style dialog. (ie writing it down the way people actually SAY IT--pauses, interruptions, lost trains of thought, et al.) This is VERY distracting, gets in the way, and makes the dialog very hard to read. This book has this dialog problem. My detailed rating would be 3.2. The strengths of the book are the world (universes) he has created here, and the incredibly imaginative ideas he casually tosses out to readers. The CTE weapon, for example! What a mindbending, sparkling, original (? ) idea! Mentioned in passing. I understand this work is related to a bunch of short stories. I would love to read a compilation of them. The characters here are not very sympathetic, some of the scenes are not that fun to read, and the ending isn't particularly happy. But I DO reread this book - to be dazzled again by the account of the final battle.

The fictional world Bulmer creates is very original. I would give 5 stars for that. However the emotional content is kind of sparse. The hero is underdeveloped and it is difficult to really relate to him. However all in all it is a memorable read. The world that Bulmer creates is so interesting that I can remember the story even after 10 or more years since I last read it. This book has my recommendation as a fast read set in a very unique and memmorable fictional world.