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A review by g_r_frank
Arklight Revelations by G.B. Holley
5.0
The Arklight series interested me because of three elements that I love in Sci-fi: tie-ins to actual Earth history, ancient alien visitors, and a good mystery/discovery plot. Book one, Arklight Revelations ticked all those boxes and I enjoyed the way the author took his time developing the characters and the plot. I also enjoyed the way that my impressions of the characters changed through the story as it progressed. The conversations of the characters as they attempt to solve the mysteries before them comes off as very convincing. Even though at times the reader is clued in that the characters are assuming things incorrectly, the assumptions they make would be understandable without the extra knowledge the reader has been given by also seeing the POV of the antagonists.
I went into this book knowing it was the first of three in a series so I knew there would be some plot lines that would not fully complete in this first volume. This first book does complete some plot arcs and twists in interesting ways that work well with the story. The mysteries it does uncover in the first book were satisfying, and the remaining mysteries that are left for the next books have me excited to get into book two immediately. Note that the actual "alien" portions are not as prevalent in this first book (as it starts on Earth with a lot of unknown mysteries to solve), so don't expect an immediate jump into an alien world like some space-military books do. This is a mystery and revealing that takes time. Savor it and enjoy it.
The characters in the book are fun to follow, and are very well defined. The elements of tension and action, as well as the more contemplative scenes, bring the characters to life. I was very happy to see that the "bad guys" are not just "bad" for the sake of being the antagonists, but have reasonable reasons for their motivations.
There were a few writing related things which I think could have been done better here and there such as POV switches in a few places, and some of the quote attributions could have been eliminated here and there (because the characters were so well defined it was easy to tell who was speaking even if they had not been attributed) but these elements did not distract me from the exciting story being told.
I am jumping into book number two now, but even just one book in, I recommend this series if you like a good scifi discovery/mystery. I would compare this story to the enjoyment I got out of reading "The Origin Mystery series" (The Atlantis Gene, The Atlantis Plague, and The Atlantis World) by A.G. Riddle -- also a great series!
I went into this book knowing it was the first of three in a series so I knew there would be some plot lines that would not fully complete in this first volume. This first book does complete some plot arcs and twists in interesting ways that work well with the story. The mysteries it does uncover in the first book were satisfying, and the remaining mysteries that are left for the next books have me excited to get into book two immediately. Note that the actual "alien" portions are not as prevalent in this first book (as it starts on Earth with a lot of unknown mysteries to solve), so don't expect an immediate jump into an alien world like some space-military books do. This is a mystery and revealing that takes time. Savor it and enjoy it.
The characters in the book are fun to follow, and are very well defined. The elements of tension and action, as well as the more contemplative scenes, bring the characters to life. I was very happy to see that the "bad guys" are not just "bad" for the sake of being the antagonists, but have reasonable reasons for their motivations.
There were a few writing related things which I think could have been done better here and there such as POV switches in a few places, and some of the quote attributions could have been eliminated here and there (because the characters were so well defined it was easy to tell who was speaking even if they had not been attributed) but these elements did not distract me from the exciting story being told.
I am jumping into book number two now, but even just one book in, I recommend this series if you like a good scifi discovery/mystery. I would compare this story to the enjoyment I got out of reading "The Origin Mystery series" (The Atlantis Gene, The Atlantis Plague, and The Atlantis World) by A.G. Riddle -- also a great series!