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The Candle Of Distant Earth (The Taken trilogy book 3) by Alan Dean Foster
01/12/2006 . Source: Donna Jones 
pub: Del Rey/Ballantine Books. 262 page hardback. Price: $23.95 (US), $31.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-345-46131-2. Buy The Candle Of Distant Earth in the USA - or Buy The Candle Of Distant Earth in the UK  check out website: www.delreybooks.com
The third and final part of 'The Taken Trilogy' sees our friends Marcus Walker
and George the talking dog landing on a planet that has a history of being bullied
by another race of aliens. Upon their arrival, the ships are mistaken for another
and are approached with seemingly more caution than is necessary.
The population of Hyff eventually welcome the group with open arms once they realise they have not come to terrorise and kill unmercilessly. Walker being Walker decides that one good turn deserves another and talks the group and their hosts the Niyyuu into helping the Hyff learn battle skills to stop the cycle of abuse.
But this isn't getting Marcus any closer to getting home and George won't let him forget it. Even if they find Earth in the quiet little backwater that it seems to be, there's no rule saying that the Vilenjji won't come and get them again just to pay them back for ruining their little enterprise.
I've read this trilogy from start to finish. Three volumes of 'The Taken Series'
back-to-back and I can honestly say the third book is just the first book and
the second rehashed together. I kept denying to myself that this series could
get any worse, but it has, and the 'climactic ending' that seems to have been
promised by the blurb is about as climactic as a dormouse breaking wind.
To start with, the Hyff are plain old aliens having troubles with other aliens
that keep coming and nicking their stuff and killing their kind. This is a generous
description because in the book it's all shrouded in a haze of boredom. Marcus
turns up with his three other captives that escaped from the Vilenjji in the first
book. Now to say these are the plainest most unlikeable characters in Science
Fiction would not tell you enough. One is an arrogant, octopus-type alien with
such a demeaning attitude to any race apart from her own that you just want to
string her up after her first line of dialogue. She's rude, egotistical and when
there are moments of glassy-eyed friendship, they are just totally unbelievable
because she is involved.
Braouk is a huge hairy poetic monster-type that recites in sing-song method every
dialogue he speaks. None of the aliens he travels with really appreciates the
beauty of his tranquil outbursts, so you don't either.
George the dog has just turned into another human. He just whines about getting home and revisiting the alleyways and picking up some freshly thrown away morsels for his lunch. He could be cute, dynamic even add a touch of humour but all he adds is another character from which dialogue and story get moved along.
Each and every one of the supporting cast including the Hyff and the Niyyou are the same. Nothing really makes you want to know what happens to them and it's not helped by the fact that very little occurs anyway. Their way of life and their motivations just seem like a mathematical formula that's been transformed into a story which in my mind is a little odd.
The big battle you expect to come to pass when the Hyff stand up to their nemesis peters out as if it's a shopping trolley argument in Tesco's. Yet again, we're on this tiny-tot train taking us through the emotional loss and slight anguish of Marcus as he realises that Earth may well be a lost cause. He's only been going through it in all of the books, you would have thought he would have come to terms with the bottom line by now!
I honestly can't seem to find anything about this book to get me - or anyone else,
for that matter - excited. There is all this supposedly high political thread
woven into this volume and while I can see that, it hardly makes the book read-worthy.
Quite the contrary, it could knock out people expecting surgery.
Before I bore you and myself anymore...Don't bother with this book or any of the others in the series. The hype and the marketing for this trilogy was all based on the author's name, not the contents of the titles. It's a real shame...
Donna Jones
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