Pocket, 2001, $6.50, ISBN 0-671-04148-7, 256 pages, paperback

I'm a StarCraft, the computer game, fan. I've been playing it for years. I saw this cover and bought the book...and broke my number one rule: never buy a book produced from a TV show or game.

Man, does this book suck. I shudder to think that my purchase might encourage Pocket, Blizzard, Grubb, or anyone else to make a second book.

You name an aspect and this book sucks. Character? The main stooge in this banality is a reporter turned instant combat veteran. I thought I was reading a novelization of V with all the gimmicks of a Z-grade movie. The dialogue makes made-for-cable-TV movies sound brilliant.

The plot, at face value, seems fine, until you realize that the big cover-up refers to the human government growing zergs to unleash on opponents. Hey, wasn't that the premise of Alien? Hmmm, how 'bout that?

This entire book reads like lame, passionless pablum churned out with less enthusiasm than a teenager turns out fast-food French fries. There's no thought to how technology works in the eleventy-eleventieth century, and even less as to how the military would deploy such in a war.

Many a good tree could have been saved had the manuscript been immolated upon delivery. Two irreplaceable hours of my life could have been saved, not to mention the $6.50 plus tax. Ignore this triumph of tripe and find another book. Why? Because, man, does this book suck.

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