C. F. Bentley (1)Reviews

This is a great entry level SciFi novel with interesting worlds, social structures, and political machinations. I enjoyed how Bentley spun the tale to show how the Harmonite culture changed over time and would recommend this book.

This is the second book in the series. The characters continue to evolve and the political machinations are fun to read about. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it is a great entry level book to the SciFi genre.

Meh. Not as fun as the first. Set solely on the space station, it never really settles down to what the problem is, or why any of these characters are involved. Jake's assumed absolute command, for no particular reason and Pamela seems to want to hold that role which would be very inappropriate for the spymaster and of little benefit tot he rest of the CSS. Sissy is moping because she's not sure where she should be or how to get the possibly real Harmony to 'talk' to her. Instead there's a confusing new race, and a pair of estranged brothers one of whom runs the station, but has let various aspects tail into disrepair to save costs.

Something about the station just doesn't feel right, not properly imagined or set in place. I'm not sure why as quite a bit of detail is given, it's just that it always seems tacked on at a convenient point in the story rather than having always been present in the author's mind. The brother's apparently managed to hide various bits of technology, again at whim of plot rather than sense. Sissy goes out to investigate another new planet, and struggles even more with her breathing. There are traces form other races here too. You can feel the ideas the author's looking for, but it just doesn't quite work.

I liked this, a colonisation effort has discovered a planet where they can interact with the harmonic vibrations of that planet's soul. Isolated from mainstream humanity they control the export of a very rare alloy, which both humanity's space force and the local aliens badly need for their war. Works surprisingly well.

The focus jumps between an uneducated Worker caste girl who finds herself the next true High Priestess of Harmony able to intercede with the planet - ish; and a milita pilot who's recruited to attempt a spy mission on the planet and retrieve the formula for the metal before the aliens invade. You can probably guess the rest, it does more or less unfold as you'd expect. But it's well written with empathetic characters. Sissy the new High Priestess is completely charming, but her naivity struggles against the corruption in the temple. Sadly this is perhaps the least believable aspect as she learns to manipulate hardened priests far to quickly. The "science" is sadly lacking even Jake's attempted explanations to himself don't hold water. Hopefully this is all resolved somewhere along the line.

Enjoyable. The book ends decisively, but a trilogy has been written, which I'm likely to explore.½

Enigma is a hippie, outer space spiritual fantasy and locked room mystery with elements of romance. It struggles to be the sum of its disparate parts. It's not science fiction, not really, despite the space ship setting and alien characters.

"What am I without the search? What are we without the sacred rituals?" (Loc. 36) Enigma attempts to answer this question but fails to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

I actually really enjoyed reading this book so much that I am now in the process of reading it to my wife at night-time.
The character development is interesting, the characters themselves each have their own personalities and while this is a very long book it has managed to keep my interest the entire time.

I won this book from LibraryThing.

First off I never read the first book Harmony so I only have snatches of past history of Jake and Sissy. But seeing she is a priestess and he is the commander of the space station, I can already see problems with their relationship. Then of course a ship crashes into the station and the aliens are found dead. There are two stowaways that will help and hinder why the ship crashed. Plus Jake and Sissy are trying to negotiate a treaty between the CSS and Harmony the planet. All kinds of problems happen. Will everything work out in the end?

This book has some decent reviews, although it doesn’t have the highest overall rating I’ve seen online. Still, a number of people like it. That said, a number of, oh… sci fi “vets” tend to view it as sci fi lite, shall we say? Here’s a quote from a review: “Adolescent wish fulfillment. There will be some young people who will love this book. I won't read the sequel….” That’s pretty much what I got out of it. Juvenile effort, juvenile story, juvenile writing, juvenile pseudo-mystical/spiritual plot, etc. Not your top of the line sci fi, in other words. I’m not even going to waste my time going into details here. I often do when I trash books I’ve wasted time on. Fortunately, I didn’t waste too much time on this one, so I’m not going to trash it. I’m just going to give it one star and state that I do not recommend it, except for some adolescent sci fi readers.

I just couldn't get into this one. I found it a bit boring and the naming of the substance Badger Metal more than a little funny.

I like this book, the plotline was good and there were a few twist and turns it in. The characters felt really interesting and they acted like real people which is something I like in a book.½

I won this from a LibraryThing Early Reviewers giveaway a few months ago.
Forgive the lateness of my review.

I really enjoyed this story!
The characters and the plot were really great.
I plan on reading the next book in this series, and hopefully there will be more to come!

I really enjoyed this book - the plot was interesting, but not overly convoluted; the characters were unique and varied; the science fiction was scientific and not ridiculous; the mystical elements were interesting and relevant to the story.
I was also impressed with the fact that despite being the second book in a series, I did not feel out of place at all. There was just enough information given about past events to make the current story enjoyable, but not enough to spoil the first book. No fumbling about in the first chapters trying to get a handle on what was happening.
The ending provided a nice conclusion to the elements in the story, but could easily (and hopefully!) continue into further books. Further, the world building is very engaging and detailed (without being weighed down by tonnes of jargon), and left me with the feeling that there was so much more that I could explore.
I liked the depth to the majority of the characters. There were quite a number of them, and I feel that the balance of providing information about them to bring them to life versus having them fulfill their role in the story was masterfully handled. As I really enjoyed this book, I honestly wouldn't have minded if it delved even deeper into inter-character relationships, even if it was at the cost of pace. Everyone had a very interesting story, and even the ones that I didn't know too much about had a lively quality that made me feel like there was more there that I wanted to hear of.
I'll be keeping an eye out for more by this author, and would enjoy continuing this series and answering some of the more minor questions that were left open.

Just plain badly written.

Enigma is the second book in the science fiction Harmony series by fantasy writer Irene Radford writing as C.F. Bentley. The action of this novel takes place largely aboard the space station First Contact Cafe. General Jake Devlin and High Priestess of Harmony Sissy are trying to negotiate an accord between Confederated Star Systems and the planet Harmony. Their efforts are interrupted by a mysterious spacecraft crashing into the station. Sissy and Jake have to confront the mystery of an odd stowaway, a mysterious refugee, and the mystery of the genetic history of their universe.

As in the first book, this novel is an interesting blend of mysticism and space opera. The familiar characters are present, and growing and changing. Relationships are changed and deepened. New and intriguing characters are introduced. Even the villains in this series are complicated and have understandable motives. These books are funny and full of action and an unfolding mystery.

No content unsuitable for YA readers.

I was reminded a little of the Star Trek Nex Generation show as I read this. A good, character driven story that was easy to read. Not a lot of sci-fi jargon to try and decipher. Didn't read the first book, but that did not detract from reading this one. It is a stand-alone story.

engaging and well timed.

Good science fiction begins with some premise of plausibility. Assuming that science advances but society devolves to revive obsolete religious or government constructs is never a good way to begin.

I didn't read the first book in the series, but this volume takes place on First Contact Café, a space station run by a race called the Labrythine. Among the residents is a general from the Confederated Star System (CSS) and a high priestess from the planet Harmony. The contingent from Harmony is the first I have issue with -- it an extremely biased caste system somewhat based on the worst of the fading Indian society: not something I would ever think likely to reappear in an enlightened society.

The book starts with an emergency aboard the FCC. A small ship crashes into the station, creating a breach that kills several aboard. The pilots of the ship, squid-like creatures, are dead. A young woman passenger is injured, and rescued by an arachnoid-like creature that had some tolerance for the vacuum of space. Here's another problem -- the vacuum of space combined with bitterly cold temperatures would make any exposure - even for a creature with an exoskeleton - impossible.

The arachnoid, Mac, is considered a phantom aboard the station. In reality, he's the half-brother of Labby, the Labythine governor of the station. Labby is one of many children (number 7, actually) that his mother had -- each with a different father from a different species (another problem!) Mac himself was the product of his humanoid mother's tryst with a spider-like father. The Labyrinthines, among other races (of which those two squid pilots were the last of their race) all appeared to be having problems of DNA stability of which various attempts at cross breeding were meant to stabilize. The denizens of Harmony were in a long war with the Maril, a race that developed from humans residing on a low-grave world who manipulated their genome to produce feathers so they could fly -- but now they too were suffering and lashed out in conquest. There's the metaphysical undertones too...the Maril and Harmony both think they are spiritually connected to planets, and Harmony in particular reacts in response to its clergy (with the high priest and priestess away, the planet is suddenly rocked by earhquakes and volcanos among other disasters).

Can you check your brain and put that aside? For reasons that will become clearer as the series wears on, the book is mostly about establishing this station as a rather neutral hub of activity for the myriad of antagonists and their interests. General Jake from the CSS seizes power after Labby is found murdered and places himself about Admiral Marcella, spymaster to the CSS and the other ranking military officer aboard. To a large degree, the author is successful here. The book would have been a little more satisfying though if it wasn't founded on such laughable premises.

Oops, discovered only December 29, 2015 I actually had received the link (I thought not). So I should have read and reviewed it before February 2.
The reading I did in time, the review took a little longer. But here it is.

March 20, 2016
Part two of a series. It could be read separately but, especially towards the end, you wonder what has taken place in part one.
It had been a long time since I had read SF. I liked the book very much.
Weird beings, even one with tentacles. But still ‘human’ feelings everywhere: love (a very important part), greed, power, jealousy, fear, ruthlessness.
For everyone who likes SF: do read the book.

Since I had not read the first in the series, I struggled with the beginning of this book. I also found it hard to get into, as I was unfamiliar with the characters and terminology, but I soon was more engaged and quite enjoyed the ending.
Some of the sci-fi features were also intriguing, and I enjoyed the role of sound in the book.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I would recommend reading the first one beforehand, as it is otherwise hard to understand at the beginning.

...the second in the Cofederated Star Systems series. I enjoyed the First Contact Cafe setting, and the, feel good, ending. While aimed at a young adult audience it held my attention 'til the end.

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this book (at multiple times through the book, I was thinking of quitting, but kept deciding to give it another chance and kept going) - not sure if it was because I had not read the 1st book in the series due to which it took me a while to understand the premise or this is not a genre I enjoy. By the end of the book I did start liking some of the characters, Sissy & Jake definitely and even Mac. But I don't think I'll return to read another book in this series.

Enigma is the second in a series of outer space adventures from C.F. Bentley. Called the “Confederated Star Systems” series, this second entry continues the story of General Jake and a high priestess named Sissy as they struggle to maintain peace talks going on between would-be allies as war rages elsewhere.

The story cannot be faulted for not achieving its ambition, because its aim is very simple: serve up some mild action in an innocuous setting. Not much more need be said.

We encounter space-borne intrigue (in the form of sparring diplomats), a small bouquet of non-human races, a murder mystery, and ghosts who haunt you during the jump to hyper space. General Jake does his all to save his station, the First Contact Café. Sissy helps him whenever and however she can, because they’re on the same side, and falling into a forbidden love. You can’t really say mayhem ensues because whenever it seems like an actual battle might occur, the narrative sidesteps it and focuses on a different matter.

This book consistently serves up the bewildering sensation of unresolved conflicts that end up not being conflicts at all. It lacks any attempt to get to the kind of philosophical issues that we read modern novels to get a taste of. This is a reasonably entertaining Young Adult book, which may depend on being part of a series to accrete any weight. It is not a series I will be taking up.

Enigma is not an action thriller, I found the slower pace and spiritual exploration unusual for science fiction. The character development seemed lacking and we are left anticipating another novel. When I picked up this book I did not realize it was a series so I am going to have to read the first book. That being said I hope the author will not be discouraged by the handful of negative reviews. The writing is powerfully and the narrative skills keep me reading and wanting more.

This is the second book in the series. The characters continue to evolve and the political machinations are fun to read about. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it is a great entry level book to the SciFi genre.

This is a great entry level SciFi novel with interesting worlds, social structures, and political machinations. I enjoyed how Bentley spun the tale to show how the Harmonite culture changed over time and would recommend this book.