Cobra Traitor (Cobra Rebellion #3) ★★☆☆½

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Title: Cobra Traitor
Series: Cobra Rebellion #3
Author: Timothy Zahn
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 416
Format: Trade Paperback

Synopsis:

Merrick Broom is on a world to find the war drug that the Trofts are going to use on humans to infiltrate the Dominion of Man and cause havoc. He hooks up with some freedom fighters and a Troft from an opposing Demesne.

The Dominion of Man has taken over Aventine, the capital Cobra world and now it is up to the Cobras there to figure out a way to throw them off without getting the entire planet scorched. Or every Cobra with a slave collar on.

The Qasaman's are playing their own games, with various drugs and secret cobra soldiers.

Everything ends with the “bad” Troft alliance falling apart due to the various other characters all working together. Jody Broom and the Cobra Traitor head to the main Dominion of Man world to show what happened and to sway public opinion in favor of the Cobra worlds.

My Thoughts:

Well, besides the original Cobra, none of these other Cobra books have really worked for me. This is book 9, the third trilogy and I'm done. Zahn was a favorite of mine growing up and he wrote some cracking good books, but this recent stuff, it's boring and stilted. It doesn't help that I was reading this on my lunch breaks and so only got in 20minutes at a time.

Funnily enough, my review of Cobra Outlaw really sums up how I felt about this book. Too many viewpoints, too much going on and not interesting enough. It came across as a political thriller in space with more focus on the Cobra worlds trying to deal with bigger forces by means other than violence. Sorry, Cobras are super weapons, use the heck out of them and let the chips fall where they may. I know that Zahn CAN write politically oriented SF very engagingly, as evidenced by his Conquerors trilogy but this wasn't the series of books to do that. Super Soldiers, Super Soldiers, Super Soldiers. Come on, USE them.

It also doesn't help things that I read Cobra Outlaw almost 3 years ago and Cobra Slave almost 5 years ago. If I were going to force myself to read any more Cobra books, I'd have to wait until the entire thing is completed and go through it in a couple of months. Zahn is not a fast paced author in terms of plot and action and so his stuff really relies on ideas, which get fuzzy after a couple of years.

Can't recommend this to anyone besides really diehard Cobra fans. Honestly, I might just go read the original novel and pretend none of these other books exist.

★★☆☆½

• Cobra Outlaw (Book 2)
• Cobra Slave (Book 1)
• Cobra War 1-3
• Cobra 1-3