The entire concept behind Starshield is magnificent. It could be described as "ingenius." I won't spoil the plot of this book, for any who haven't read it yet, but it's creative and diverse universe alone make it a great work of science fiction. The whole joke behind Zanfib plays too little of a role and unfortunately, a few chapters lack details. Also, the sequel, "Nightsword" is a great companion. Apparently, the third book has still not been released, due to the sad lack of popularity the first books have. But The Starshield novels are yet another great accomplishment of Weis and Hickman, perhaps one of their best. If you enjoyed this book, and even if you did not, I'd recommend another work by the same authors: The Death Gate Cycle.

When I first read this book I was in the 7th grade, in the time before and after I read this book I read some other books such as The Wheel of time series by Robert Jordan, Ender's game, Shannara series and more, and I enjoyed them all and I didn't really paid this book as much attention. now when I reached the 8th grade I started loosing interest in reading, yea I mean GENERAL reading I just couldn't pick up and read any book that I once read or haven't read. I even tried harry potter and IT BORED BE after the 2-3th chapter. now here is my point. one day bout a year ago I tried to sit down and remember all the stories that I once read, I discovered that they still bore me and that I don't feel like reading at all as usual well ill cut the crab..... UNTIL I remembered that book called Starshield sentinels and its unique 5 part story. its a really complicated book for me to write about because each part except for the last one deals with different characters or different times when the 5th part connects it all, the story starts in a myth about how the god- like ruler entity of the universe, kendis dai, sacrificed his immortality for the love of shauna kir, who was tempted to fall into the mortality by the evil obem ulek, and then the second part which takes place 3,000 years after in a galactic empire in the heart of an order called the umnet, and THEN the 3rd part where the story of the remnants of the of the first interstelar-ship crew from earth takes place, and id just say the story is much more complicated than that...... now back to the point, lol. this is the book that brought me back to reading and I even read some parts of it again before I got back to reading other books, and I cant say ''this is the best book ever'' or stuff like that because you always change your mind bout that, id just say this book has a really unique story then ANY book that I've ever read and it keeps you wondering about it's universe and in the end of the book how the earth and it's government looks so small and indeed barbaric as the book states. for me, this book was very inspiring and I recommend it to people with an open mind about sci fi and not just generally sci fi readers because a great part of this book is also fantasy and I just liked it's philosophy about how you should always keep and open mind because the things you least expected will happen, and how people can change their perspective in so drastically but they will always have their unique and simple minded charecter. well sorry for all the crab but I just cant write any less ;-)