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g_r_frank's reviews
45 reviews
Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe
2.0
Three major story lines are interwoven in the short chapter format of this book. It was an interesting premise overall but one little trick that is done to the reader ( which I won't spoil ) was both... interesting (in how the author used to to connect two of the storylines) and also kinda personally disappointing because I liked how it was going at the start in the telling of stories separated by time and distance.
Overall I liked one of the characters / storylines most. The other two... one was kinda humdrum and the third I did not care much for any of the characters in the story. Even in the one story with the main protagonist I enjoyed ... it could have developed the side characters and the premise of the situation a lot more. At the end, one character who was supposed to be a spy/secret agent guy was less active and knowledgeable about doing things than the main character who was a bit out of her element with the plot. Wish it had more deeply explored the AI spaceship connection to the characters too. It felt like that started off well but kinda fizzled toward the end of the book.
When it was all said and done, this thick book did not seem to show any real character development or change in ANY characters and there was little to no payoff of any promises made to the reader in the plot. It ended as an unsatisfying cliffhanger... waiting for you to buy the next book.
All that to say.. I did enjoy some parts of this but it promised one thing to the reader and delivered... not sure... something else... that was not satisfying to me.
if you are willing to commit to the next book after this and whatever more books might follow than go for it.. if you wanted a satisfying first book that would excite you to read more of the series... I am afraid this might not do it.
Overall I liked one of the characters / storylines most. The other two... one was kinda humdrum and the third I did not care much for any of the characters in the story. Even in the one story with the main protagonist I enjoyed ... it could have developed the side characters and the premise of the situation a lot more. At the end, one character who was supposed to be a spy/secret agent guy was less active and knowledgeable about doing things than the main character who was a bit out of her element with the plot. Wish it had more deeply explored the AI spaceship connection to the characters too. It felt like that started off well but kinda fizzled toward the end of the book.
When it was all said and done, this thick book did not seem to show any real character development or change in ANY characters and there was little to no payoff of any promises made to the reader in the plot. It ended as an unsatisfying cliffhanger... waiting for you to buy the next book.
All that to say.. I did enjoy some parts of this but it promised one thing to the reader and delivered... not sure... something else... that was not satisfying to me.
if you are willing to commit to the next book after this and whatever more books might follow than go for it.. if you wanted a satisfying first book that would excite you to read more of the series... I am afraid this might not do it.
Tusk by Nathan M. Hurst
3.0
I’ll try to describe my experience with this book (its good and "coulda been better" points) without getting into the actual story, so as not to spoil any of the interesting plot points and twists.
I picked up Tusk (book one of "A Sol Protocol") on the basis of the writing style as seen in the prologue preview, the reader reviews of it on Amazon, and the overall story synopsis which sounded interesting to me. The writing style was very readable and the author describes things well, painting a good mental picture of the setting, the action and the characters. The writing style and the plot kept me going, but the complexity in the telling of the tale was a bit of a distraction.
The book's chapters aren't numbered and there is no table of contents. With the exception of a prologue, the chapters are only “titled" by the name of the character whose point of view we will be viewing it from, so several chapters have the same name as we revisit the POV of some of them. This technique did help to keep track of which character we are seeing through, as there were a lot of POV characters, although I think there were a few places where the POV slipped out of the character who was telling that part. While we are being introduced to the many characters, several go into a daydream about their past and then "Snap out of it," back to the current events of the story, in order to deliver some of their backstory history. Some of this is useful and some seemed like it wandered a bit. The technique worked well enough, but it may have been used a few too many times. Overall, I think it would have strengthened the story if it was told from just a few POV characters - maybe even combining a few characters into one to reduce the number of names the reader has to track.
There are several plot lines running parallel in the book which made the story more interesting than a simple one plot-line story. There are a lot of surprising plot twists and character motivation turns that are introduced in the story. However, I personally felt like the story bogged down a bit in the middle. We hear the POV of several characters telling their side of some of the same events, which felt like a re-hashing of segments of the story already covered. Fewer points of view or fewer characters could have helped this. Once the initial inciting incident problem seems to be resolved, the plot expands a bit into more interesting areas at about the 2/3 point. I think if that slow part of the story had been streamlined, and the number of POV characters had been condensed, the plot could have been explored in more detail and the main characters defined better. Several characters whose personal thoughts and experiences the reader invests time in suddenly die in the story, it made it hard to know which one to invest in as I got to the end of the book. Because there were so many characters to learn about, some of them seemed to blend together into generic characters and I had to go back a few times to be sure which was which.
I never really understood why this book was titled Tusk. The shuttle in the story with that name does not feature greatly in the narrative except near the start as it brings characters to the setting where some of the major action takes place, but the ship itself does not feature that much in the plot compared to the characters which later in the book are in another shuttle which seems to have no name at all.
I gave this a 3 star although I might call it more of a 3.5 rating. The biggest downsides were the too many/extraneous characters issue, the bog down in the middle of the book and the extra shuttles, topics and side characters which I think just added a little too much unneeded narrative.
On the good side, I liked many of the ideas this story explored. The author introduced some unique takes on regularly used sci-fi tropes like AI, colony ships, hibernation, and cloning which made it more interesting than some books that touch those subjects. The changes in the plot kept things interesting except for some of the middle of the book that felt a little slow. The story could have been improved in my opinion would if fewer point of view characters had been used to tell it and if the main characters we end up with at the end had been made clearer to the reader early on. The book ends after wrapping up a few of the major story plot lines, doing a few surprise reveals and twists and introduces some new challenges/problems for the characters that will obviously be pursued in the next book.
The book's storyline interested me enough to go on to the next book in the series. I'm hoping that since the main characters seem to be more clearly defined now, and the scene set, the next book might be worth a read. I hope my critique was not too harsh, I did enjoy the read. I just felt there were some things that could have been done to make it better.
I picked up Tusk (book one of "A Sol Protocol") on the basis of the writing style as seen in the prologue preview, the reader reviews of it on Amazon, and the overall story synopsis which sounded interesting to me. The writing style was very readable and the author describes things well, painting a good mental picture of the setting, the action and the characters. The writing style and the plot kept me going, but the complexity in the telling of the tale was a bit of a distraction.
The book's chapters aren't numbered and there is no table of contents. With the exception of a prologue, the chapters are only “titled" by the name of the character whose point of view we will be viewing it from, so several chapters have the same name as we revisit the POV of some of them. This technique did help to keep track of which character we are seeing through, as there were a lot of POV characters, although I think there were a few places where the POV slipped out of the character who was telling that part. While we are being introduced to the many characters, several go into a daydream about their past and then "Snap out of it," back to the current events of the story, in order to deliver some of their backstory history. Some of this is useful and some seemed like it wandered a bit. The technique worked well enough, but it may have been used a few too many times. Overall, I think it would have strengthened the story if it was told from just a few POV characters - maybe even combining a few characters into one to reduce the number of names the reader has to track.
There are several plot lines running parallel in the book which made the story more interesting than a simple one plot-line story. There are a lot of surprising plot twists and character motivation turns that are introduced in the story. However, I personally felt like the story bogged down a bit in the middle. We hear the POV of several characters telling their side of some of the same events, which felt like a re-hashing of segments of the story already covered. Fewer points of view or fewer characters could have helped this. Once the initial inciting incident problem seems to be resolved, the plot expands a bit into more interesting areas at about the 2/3 point. I think if that slow part of the story had been streamlined, and the number of POV characters had been condensed, the plot could have been explored in more detail and the main characters defined better. Several characters whose personal thoughts and experiences the reader invests time in suddenly die in the story, it made it hard to know which one to invest in as I got to the end of the book. Because there were so many characters to learn about, some of them seemed to blend together into generic characters and I had to go back a few times to be sure which was which.
I never really understood why this book was titled Tusk. The shuttle in the story with that name does not feature greatly in the narrative except near the start as it brings characters to the setting where some of the major action takes place, but the ship itself does not feature that much in the plot compared to the characters which later in the book are in another shuttle which seems to have no name at all.
I gave this a 3 star although I might call it more of a 3.5 rating. The biggest downsides were the too many/extraneous characters issue, the bog down in the middle of the book and the extra shuttles, topics and side characters which I think just added a little too much unneeded narrative.
On the good side, I liked many of the ideas this story explored. The author introduced some unique takes on regularly used sci-fi tropes like AI, colony ships, hibernation, and cloning which made it more interesting than some books that touch those subjects. The changes in the plot kept things interesting except for some of the middle of the book that felt a little slow. The story could have been improved in my opinion would if fewer point of view characters had been used to tell it and if the main characters we end up with at the end had been made clearer to the reader early on. The book ends after wrapping up a few of the major story plot lines, doing a few surprise reveals and twists and introduces some new challenges/problems for the characters that will obviously be pursued in the next book.
The book's storyline interested me enough to go on to the next book in the series. I'm hoping that since the main characters seem to be more clearly defined now, and the scene set, the next book might be worth a read. I hope my critique was not too harsh, I did enjoy the read. I just felt there were some things that could have been done to make it better.
Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet by David Grinspoon
5.0
Great overview of not only the scientific understanding of Venus but also its history with man - the myths, the stories, the misconceptions. Very entertaining reading (don't miss the humor in the footnotes) and geared to the layman. Some detailed scientific areas that will satisfy those who know a lot about Venus already and great history of our work to uncover its mysteries. I love astronomy, science, and history - so this was a great reference and overview of Venus - a subject that is bigger now that Phosphene was detected in its atmosphere, but still a subject that is hard to find good books about from someone who was involved in researching the subject. Highly recommended.
Artemis by Andy Weir
4.0
I enjoyed this story because of Weir's style of adhering to real science as a basis of his story setting. The story was good and the main character was interesting, although not quite as likeable as his Mark Watney character from "The Martian". The main character was a young female, something of a rebellious type, new ground for Weir. The story continued the tradition of problem solving and story plot based on scientific understandings and that made it fascinating to me. Well worth a read but I still think the Martian is a better, more exciting story. I hope he continues writing more novels.
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
3.0
had never read this classic Sci-fi novel, and felt that I should since I love the genre. I can clearly see why this was groundbreaking in its day. The more or less Hard sci-fi approach of the story, in regards to orbital mechanics, the way centripetal forces inside Rama would act, how liquids and air inside would react was amazing and probably very unusual in the time this was published. Those elements hold up well even today. I also love that the book lets the reader explore and incrementally discover many unknown mysteries in RAMA as the characters discover them, and leaves some mysteries totally unexplained, and to each reader's imagination.
One downside to the story is that the way characters are used and portrayed is very cold and distant. Except maybe for the main character, the commander of the ship, there is little character development or reason to care about them as might be done in more modern novels. I guess this is just a style of the era it was written in. I also felt like the "dangers" they faced were too easily overcome. The fact that everyone seems to come out of these life threatening problems alive and well is another premature tension release that I think would be handled differently in a more modern novel.
But I am glad I read it and I did enjoy it for its classic nature and hard physics / science components fit into the narrative of the story. I have heard that the sequels of Rama are different and co-written or written by other authors... most people who have read them don't like them as much as the original so I think this will be the only one I read. But I am glad I did read it and know it now.
One downside to the story is that the way characters are used and portrayed is very cold and distant. Except maybe for the main character, the commander of the ship, there is little character development or reason to care about them as might be done in more modern novels. I guess this is just a style of the era it was written in. I also felt like the "dangers" they faced were too easily overcome. The fact that everyone seems to come out of these life threatening problems alive and well is another premature tension release that I think would be handled differently in a more modern novel.
But I am glad I read it and I did enjoy it for its classic nature and hard physics / science components fit into the narrative of the story. I have heard that the sequels of Rama are different and co-written or written by other authors... most people who have read them don't like them as much as the original so I think this will be the only one I read. But I am glad I did read it and know it now.
Exoneration by Heather Murphy, Drew Wagar
5.0
This is the second book in the Shadeward Series. I loved the characters and the setting of the story very much in the first book and jumped right into this one. The storyline is engaging. Drew keeps multiple story arcs working simultaneously that all come together toward the end of the book with an interesting setup for the third book. At this point the characters are well established and definite emotional opinions, fears and hopes are attached to all of them. This volume had some exciting new parts of the world and overall mystery to show us.
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!