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January 2004
Reviews
Boring, boring, boring. But fortunately, only boring and not truly horrid. With some books, I can see the
potential, either in character or storyline. In this I saw nothing really, prehaps a touch of writers block
that made this seem like a good thing to write at the time. Wrong decision. Romeo and Juliet has been done (and redone,
and redone and redone again,) by better scribes than this. Leave the meloncholy drama to Shakespear and write something
new. Throughout the book I kept asking myself questions, So, Who cares and What? Never a good thing. Hopes that anything
decent would come out of this were dashed at the grocery store. Who wants to read about a trip to the grocery store?
Unless, of course, it has a reason which this scene lacked. It seemed the whole book lacked reason. Useless characters
abounded, and the motivation for the MAIN characters was ridiculous.
| Gripe #1: USELESS CHARACTERS |
USELESS CHARACTER #1 Robert, can anyone give one good reason why this thing is in the story? USELESS CHARACTER #2 Shula, sister to Malcolm, huh? USELESS CHARACTERS All the employees of Stellar. | |
| Gripe #2: Main character motiviation | Why in the hell, and when in the story do Not-Paul and Sandra have time to fall in love? Just askin'. And why is Malcolm all hot for her she didn't sound like a hottie to me, red hair and freckles is just about all we got. Is Sir Phillip just a greedy bastard or is the man insane? A tortured and starved prisoner does not a genius make. Uhm, and why the heck is a hardened journalist so ready to believe in aliens, and amenisa and conspiracy theories? This is stretching our suspension of disbelief a bit too far. Especially if one knows anything at all about journalism. | |
| Gripe #3: The amnesia thing. | I know this was for 'dramatic effect' and so Not-Paul remained this weak and confused charicture but it felt stupidly contrived. | |
| Gripe #4: Sandra | Hum, she's twenty four, a plant pathologist and and therefore must have part of a brain that works. Where does it go? | |
| Gripe #5: Not-Paul | I have one of those cartoon ballons over my head. I hated him, for no good reason other than he bored the pants off me and I could not empathise with his situation in the least. | |
| Gripe #6: Wavevector and Gravitational Constant | It is really and truly sad when there are only two characters in the entire book that seem in the least bit interesting. And they only show up for about five pages, what a waste of a brilliant and different kind of alien. |
With some books in the past I felt I could have loved them if only. For this book there isn't even that much, it was boring, redundant and really just kind of silly. There was no drama, no energy it was all just kind of blah. Not the worst, not the best, just a run of the mill read.
I can sum this book up in one word: Average. It felt completely unoriginal. The setting, story, and even the characters held
no intereset. I had correctly anticipated most of the plot points before I had even gotten to the first page. I felt a
stirring of interest at the aliens. I would have enjoyed hearing more about the energy beings. Unfortunately the writer didn't
do much with them and for what little there was I had to wade throught the sludge of unnecessary activities.
| Gripe #1: Malcolm "X" | How long did it take the writer to let us know
Malcolm is black. Did she even describe the supporting characters beyond what they were wearing? Question: Was Sylvia Brown
(Malcolm's mother) also black? I DON"T KNOW |
| Gripe #2: Robert | Who is this guy? Other than a sounding board for Sandra's denouncment of aliens. Failed relationship? Was that just an excuse to have her talk to him? |
| Gripe #3: Gay Reporters | Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with homosexuals. (Unless I'm expected to participate) The problem was it did nothing to further the story. It felt like it was added just to keep them from making a pass at Sandra. |
| Gripe #4: Sandra | What's her problem? She doesn't come across very self-confident. She was more afraid of getting in to trouble than actually helping. How does Sandra fall for both a super-geek genius and a struggling-artist painter? |
| Gripe #5: Not-Paul | Poor Bastard! Let's just say he seemed realistic in his incompetence. |
| Gripe #6: Wavevector | What's the use having principles if you break them when you want? If he's so smart, why did he give us the one technology that could be used against him? |
By the end of the book, I was left with a lot of questions. The biggest one has to be:
Why did we pick this one?
I thought this story was going along great-the story of a man (Paul) who has amnesia from an accident and thinks there's foul
play afoot at the company he works for. Sure, it didn't seem like sci-fi, but it was somewhat interesting. Then suddenly,
out of nowhere, he's an alien. There was no leading up to it, no foreshadowing, just suddenly an alien-like the author just
thought, "hey, this would be cool." And all during the time Paul is struggling with his amnesia, Sandra falls in love with
him. Over a week time period. Right. And then, she finds out he's an alien and still loves him. Right again.
The aliens themselves did seem interesting once we learn of them, but it was like "hey, these are the aliens, now we're moving onto something else." Not enough time was spent on them. If three-quarters of the book had been about the aliens and one-quarter about Paul's amnesia instead of the other way around, it would have worked out better.
There were several characters that had no place in the story whatsoever-Sandra's initial boyfriend, Robert; Malcolm's sister Shula; and several of Sir Phillip's cronies. They did not further the plot at all. Sandra started out being intelligent and well-educated, then turned into a wimpy female. Paul was cold and distant, not worthy of Sandra's "love", I felt. And I have no clue why it was important for the reporters to be gay. Again, it did not further the plot.
I think we decided after this book not to choose anymore unknown British authors. I for one don't plan on reading any more books by this author and am now wary of unknown authors.