Scan barcode
A review by nooralshanti
The Lost Signal (Slaves of Zisaida, #1) by J.S. Fernandez Morales
3.0
The Lost Signal is a sci-fi story that shows an alien invasion of earth in a unique and interesting way. There are a lot of things about this novel I liked - it has a strong story at the heart of it that was meticulously planned by the author - but at every turn the book focused on details I personally didn't care about and ignored or skipped over the things I would have wanted to see, having them take place off-screen only to be briefly mentioned. This made for kind of a weird reading experience for me where I simultaneously loved it and didn't care about the scenes that were being told so well before my eyes. Hence the 3 start rating, although if I could give half stars I would give it 3.5 stars. But don't let the star rating influence you too much, it's honestly more a product of my weird and very particular tastes when it comes to sci-fi. Hopefully my lengthy review will help you determine if it's the book for you.
Anyway, The Lost Signal tells the story of an alien invasion using two timelines that eventually converge. The first one focuses on a group of soldiers in the just-eliminated US Space Force as they are in the process of clearing out their base. They are contacted by an alien from a species called the Urukulu who claims that his people, led and tricked by another species called the Creators, are on their way to Earth to enslave humanity. He offers technology and inside knowledge and a couple of hundred Urukulu - mostly scientists - who await permission to come to Earth and help the humans fight for their freedom. Right away, you can tell this is an interesting premise.
The problem with this timeline for me was that it focused on all the characters remembering the same past event and on unrealistic "banter" between a bunch of soldiers that I wasn't really allowed to get to know better. Instead of showing us the reaction of the entire world, the potentially interesting interactions between the humans from different countries coming together to try and fight this invasion, or any of the other interesting things I would expect to see when an alien invasion is involved it was literally scene after scene of "banter" conversations in which they casually revealed the progress of their attempt to convince humanity that the alien threat was real.
The second timeline was extremely different from the first. It follows humans and a weird human/urukulu hybrid girl who are living very primitive lives and attempting to evade capture and enslavement by the Urukulu. At first it's not clear if this timeline is in the past (we had been led to believe that the Urukulu used to be part of humanity's ancient past and had enslaved humans thousands of years ago) or a future in which the efforts of the characters from the first timeline failed. Either way, this timeline also features some pretty interesting ideas, but largely ignores them as it focuses on the thoughts of the Hybrid girl, Fiona, and her love for Ralph, the human that she grew up with. We get to see what society looks like when the Creators use their Urukulu puppets to enslave the humans, making them mine some metal called Zisaida in terrible conditions.
Instead of focusing on the lives of the slaves and their bids for freedom, or on the thoughts of the sympathetic Urukulu, Inanna who questions the status quo we are forced to follow around Fiona as she spends her time thinking about how much she wants to save Ralph and his wife Anya (the only humans she cares about) and how she can't do it. It's not really her fault, she's literally being kept away from any interesting action taking place and can only dwell on her insecurities and inability to help - and when she does get a chance to do stuff she does it - it's just that for a multi-POV book I feel like I really missed out on seeing the interesting parts of this timeline by being restricted to Fiona's perspective for so long.
Again, lots of interesting things, just none of them were focused on properly.
Also, there's a twist that comes into play about 3/4 of the way through the novel. Unfortunately for me, I guessed it much, much earlier so instead of being surprised and delighted by it I was left just waiting to see how the author was going to reveal it. I actually really enjoyed this section of the book where I started seeing the hints dropping and wondered exactly how it would play out, so that's another pro in this book's favour, but I suspect that if the book was written in a more linear fashion by separating the two timelines I probably would have enjoyed this aspect much more when it was eventually revealed.
Finally, another personal preference for me when it comes to Sci-Fi is for the book to kind of say something about the human condition or modern civilization or whatever. This book tries to say things about war and obeying commands vs. doing the right thing, but (again, because of the focus of all the scenes) it ends up not saying it with much force at all. Just kind of a vague idea that's presented in the background and doesn't properly grow from the character's experiences. The majority of the characters have already figured out the right thing before the start of the story (which doesn't help them feel like realistic, distinct people, to be honest). Again, this made it so that one character's journey and questioning of the status quo could have been much more powerful, but we didn't get any POV scenes with this character until the very end!
Overall, this novel is a good sci-fi novel with a lot of interesting ideas but - for me personally - the focus of a lot of the scenes prevented it from being as gripping and powerful as it could have been. You may enjoy it more than I did, so I highly encourage you to check it out. I also look forward to reading more by this author because I think this story - and by extension - the author has a lot of potential!
Anyway, The Lost Signal tells the story of an alien invasion using two timelines that eventually converge. The first one focuses on a group of soldiers in the just-eliminated US Space Force as they are in the process of clearing out their base. They are contacted by an alien from a species called the Urukulu who claims that his people, led and tricked by another species called the Creators, are on their way to Earth to enslave humanity. He offers technology and inside knowledge and a couple of hundred Urukulu - mostly scientists - who await permission to come to Earth and help the humans fight for their freedom. Right away, you can tell this is an interesting premise.
The problem with this timeline for me was that it focused on all the characters remembering the same past event and on unrealistic "banter" between a bunch of soldiers that I wasn't really allowed to get to know better. Instead of showing us the reaction of the entire world, the potentially interesting interactions between the humans from different countries coming together to try and fight this invasion, or any of the other interesting things I would expect to see when an alien invasion is involved it was literally scene after scene of "banter" conversations in which they casually revealed the progress of their attempt to convince humanity that the alien threat was real.
The second timeline was extremely different from the first. It follows humans and a weird human/urukulu hybrid girl who are living very primitive lives and attempting to evade capture and enslavement by the Urukulu. At first it's not clear if this timeline is in the past (we had been led to believe that the Urukulu used to be part of humanity's ancient past and had enslaved humans thousands of years ago) or a future in which the efforts of the characters from the first timeline failed. Either way, this timeline also features some pretty interesting ideas, but largely ignores them as it focuses on the thoughts of the Hybrid girl, Fiona, and her love for Ralph, the human that she grew up with. We get to see what society looks like when the Creators use their Urukulu puppets to enslave the humans, making them mine some metal called Zisaida in terrible conditions.
Instead of focusing on the lives of the slaves and their bids for freedom, or on the thoughts of the sympathetic Urukulu, Inanna who questions the status quo we are forced to follow around Fiona as she spends her time thinking about how much she wants to save Ralph and his wife Anya (the only humans she cares about) and how she can't do it. It's not really her fault, she's literally being kept away from any interesting action taking place and can only dwell on her insecurities and inability to help - and when she does get a chance to do stuff she does it - it's just that for a multi-POV book I feel like I really missed out on seeing the interesting parts of this timeline by being restricted to Fiona's perspective for so long.
Again, lots of interesting things, just none of them were focused on properly.
Also, there's a twist that comes into play about 3/4 of the way through the novel. Unfortunately for me, I guessed it much, much earlier so instead of being surprised and delighted by it I was left just waiting to see how the author was going to reveal it. I actually really enjoyed this section of the book where I started seeing the hints dropping and wondered exactly how it would play out, so that's another pro in this book's favour, but I suspect that if the book was written in a more linear fashion by separating the two timelines I probably would have enjoyed this aspect much more when it was eventually revealed.
Finally, another personal preference for me when it comes to Sci-Fi is for the book to kind of say something about the human condition or modern civilization or whatever. This book tries to say things about war and obeying commands vs. doing the right thing, but (again, because of the focus of all the scenes) it ends up not saying it with much force at all. Just kind of a vague idea that's presented in the background and doesn't properly grow from the character's experiences. The majority of the characters have already figured out the right thing before the start of the story (which doesn't help them feel like realistic, distinct people, to be honest). Again, this made it so that one character's journey and questioning of the status quo could have been much more powerful, but we didn't get any POV scenes with this character until the very end!
Overall, this novel is a good sci-fi novel with a lot of interesting ideas but - for me personally - the focus of a lot of the scenes prevented it from being as gripping and powerful as it could have been. You may enjoy it more than I did, so I highly encourage you to check it out. I also look forward to reading more by this author because I think this story - and by extension - the author has a lot of potential!