I enjoyed
Seven Deadly Sins. I had been waiting to buy it for some time, and once I finally had the money I rushed to Barnes and Noble. (In fact, the only books I didn't get were
The Children of Kings and
The Needs of the Many.
The Economist and a venti caramel frappuccino were calling).
Overall, I would rank the stories, in order of favorite to least favorite, as follows:
The Slow Knife
Reservoir Ferengi/
The First Peer
The Unhappy Ones
Work is Hard
Freedom Angst
Revenant
Honestly, apart from minor things in the stories, the first 5 are about the same in terms of my liking them. It was really only
Freedom Angst and
Revenant that I disliked very much. My problem with
Freedom Angst is that I never really felt the
lust part. It felt a bit forced, and the only character that really matched the
lust was the Intendant, but even that fell flat. Plus, I really didn't connect with the characters. It was just too much of a contrived and...flat story.
Revenant had some of the same problems. Maybe I'm burned out on the Borg, but I just couldn't take this story. I wasn't sure why Nick Locarno was introduced, but that didn't really effect my opinion of the story. I couldn't connect with the characters at all. The only ones I didn't outright dislike were whoever was on the
Norfolk (I didn't even bother to remember characters names apart from Locarno's). I'm a little disappointed in the fact that I disliked it so much, because I've been in the mood to enjoy a good creepy thriller, and I rushed through this, skimming more than anything, just to say that I had "read" it.
I think my other problem is that, in regards to the sin of gluttony, I didn't really feel it in this book. I completely agree with
Christopher's point about gluttony being not just about eating a lot, but about wasteful and over-consumption of anything. But even that wasn't really evident, to me at least, in this story. It felt like "Well, since the Borg are seen or described as constantly assimilating and absorbing others, let's just give them the sin of gluttony and write a story that kinda might go with it". I also wasn't sure of the impact that the
Norfolk reporting "The Borg have returned" or whatever had, as well as the ultimate destination of the
Reston. That I might be interested in, but eh.
In regards to
The Unhappy Ones, I was never sure whose wrath it really referred to...