by William F. Mann

This was totally different from what I expected. I have a historical interest in the Knights Templar, who were disbanded and mostly executed in 1309. I didn't know that the Freemasons had adopted the name for their own organisation, although I've seen other modern groups do the same.

This story is set in American Civil War times and centered on a historical figure called Albert Pike, who was a general in the Confederate army and a Freemason.

The writing was reasonably good, apart from some of the dialogue, but this just isn't an area of interest for me. I feel the book is mis-titled, though I should have read the description more closely. The first few lines supported the impression that it would actually be about the Knights Templar from the title.

If someone wants to read about Civil War Confederacy and Freemasonry of the time, this should appeal. The connections to the Templars are certainly pure fiction though.

This third volume was the last one I have in this series and frankly, I don't think I will continue after this. While I'm a bit intrigued whether they will at some point be able to communicate with the Gauna and what they would learn from that, I don't think it is worth it continuing the series.

More battles that are hard to follow, interspersed with some seemingly random scenes which do little however to develop the characters further. There's a couple of flashbacks as well, and one of them did confirm some of my suspicions, while another one left me with more questions and less answers still.

Interesting premise, but it didn't really work for me.

Continuing Knights of Sidonia, volume 2 mainly is more of the previous. There is a lot of battles against different types of Gauna, which is the alien races fighting the humans. There is a lot of inexperienced people who have to do important jobs. The main character goes from hero to zero and back again in the span of chapters.

I find the drawings are a bit full which sometimes make it more difficult to follow the story, especially during all the battles where there's so many tentacles and other things that it sometimes becomes a bit of a blur. I'd rather see a little bit more character development.

I got the first three volumes of Knights of Sidonia (couldn't help but think of Muse's Knights of Cydonia) a while back and have finally come around to reading them. It's a space opera Manga about a self-sustaining colossal ship Sidonia and its mecha fighters that battle against an alien, shape-shifting species dead set on destroying humans.

This first volume is like many first volumes. Some things are promising but a large part of it is dumping characters and information about the world on you as you try to figure out what will become important later. The main character at this point was this typical nobody with a mysterious past that I'm sure will become important at some point.