A review by a_lovesbooks
A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson

4.0

To be honest, I only read this because Gillian Anderson (co-)wrote it. Apart from it being science-fiction, I didn't know what it would be about and just started it. First things first, it is a very quick read. Rather entertaining, too, and sometimes that's actually enough for a novel. I was surprised that the storyline is, all in all, quite compelling and interesting; I felt myself wanting to know what was happening. Then towards the end, I began to lose faith in the book. Caitlin, a child psychologist, first treats Maanik, who is seemingly possessed by something. So far so good. As the book progresses, though, Caitlin is more and more drawn into this whole thing and I just don't buy it. She doesn't question all these weird things, people catching fire, speaking dead languages. They happen and she is trying to come up with WHY, but she is not shocked by it; at least it doesn't seem to me like she this. It's more like 'been there, done that'. Her whole attitude is like that. And that's part of the reason why this reminds me of The X-Files. I did not start this book looking for parallels or anything. But the whole situation feels like an x-files. Not to mention that Caitlin has this sidekick, Ben, who is a translator (I want to say he's a linguist, too?), but who is also totally ok with all these strange things happening. That really weirded me out.

Like I said, it's an entertaining read, which is why the book gets 4 stars instead of just 3. There are a few things that bothered me, but since this is only the first part of a saga, some might be cleared up later. For example, why is Caitlin so open to all of this? The charcters, to me, don't seem very fleshed out. They are for the most part pretty stereotypical. Unsurprisingly, since it's a short book. I hope that changes in the next parts.