SPSFC 3 Rapid Fire Reviews
As promised here are the last few reviews we owe for the SPSFC 3. We put forward Icebreaker and The Yesterday Pill as our semifinalists and wish those authors well in the finals.
Arbiter – The Cosmic Prophecy Book 1 By Omal Don Spater
The Blurb
In the twenty-fourth century, when Elysium is made and the Mars is colonized, the world’s destiny twists, as the rise of a dictator brings forth new supremacy through a cyber oracle to conquer the Superstates, annihilating the peace and harmony of people.
Bodhi Turvaśa, a 28 years old young man living in India’s undisputed lands, decides to leave Earth before the beginning of the apocalypse. He desires to enter Elysium, risking all that he loves the most, for a better life, and dares to venture out, with his fiancé, Anjana Kashyap, and her cousin, Agastya Kashyap, traversing through the prohibited lands, to reach the Exodus Port in Moscow, Soviet State. Little do they know that he is carrying one of the greatest assets to Elysium’s ‘Acer Rubrum Arc’ until coincidentally meets Shen Er Shi and Bane Lux amid two encounters that refuel their adventurous journey.
Their mission henceforth tenses while the suspense starts grasping them with its thrill, although finding great endurance, in the hand of mere blessing, they seldom felt cynical about their frail status, focusing to see the peak of escape, after all.
Despite resistance, does he succeed to deliver himself to the Elysium, with his entourage, or does he fail to accomplish his predestined duty?
It’s for you to find out …!!
The Review by Paul Lavender
It is quite clear from the beginning of this book that Omal is not a native English speaker or writer, even though he has lived in the US and the UK for more than 10 years. The problems begin with the copyright page, which is practically a novel in and of itself. Do we really need to know all the work that the author has put into the book when it would be easier to put what he didn’t do? Please, if you are going to edit your own work, get a native speaker to go over it too.
Then we have a prologue that has words out of order, telling rather than showing, and a timeline that just seems wrong. One paragraph has the world in nuclear war, then the next paragraph has people watching tv. The world is made up of 4 powers with Russia being with the EU states, but the UK is aligned with the US.
I gave up at 25%, and seriously cannot recommend this book to anyone in its current state.
New Eyes By Tobias Cabral
The Blurb
Just six months ago the rogue android, BopLpops' grisly killing spree came to an end.
Gaspar Núñez's conscience can find no relief for his part in unknowingly helping the horribly-abused 'Synth' wreak his terrible vengeance...even though it cost him his eyes.
But now a desperate, dangerous path has opened up for him to seek atonement, one that will carry him all the way to Mars.
Jenna Graham never saw the Darkness in BopLpops until that terrible summer night, half a year ago.
She'd worshiped him every time he performed for his adoring fans, the monster within him wholly hidden from her eyes.
Now chance has brought her an opportunity to confront the trauma that's haunted her all this time.
Meanwhile, operatives of a shadowy anti-technological religious group have vowed to thwart their plans at any cost.
NEW EYES continues the story of the critically-acclaimed Cyberpunk detective novella, MECHANICAL ERROR.
A thrilling, thoughtful science fiction adventure, it crosses the space between worlds while exploring what it means to be human.
The Review by Paul Lavender
I attempted to read this novel, managing to get through 16% of it. My struggle wasn't due to the story's quality, but rather to formatting issues that persisted across both my iPhone and iPad. Oddly, the author's name and book title would sporadically interrupt the flow of the text, appearing randomly amidst the narrative. Despite these technical setbacks, I must commend the cover design, which perfectly encapsulates the essence of a classic Sci-Fi theme. Its aesthetic appeal is undeniable. Given the opportunity, I would eagerly revisit this book, provided the formatting issues are addressed and rectified, to fully immerse myself in its potentially captivating storyline.
H2LiftShips: Beyond Luna: 1 by Bob Freeman
The blurb
H2LiftShips, a tech manual for a future Imagine a world, exactly like ours, but different Part Road-Trip, part solar sailing, always with food, gambling, jail, and pirates, not necessarily in that order No: Aliens, Monsters, blasters, pyrotechnic computers, or Anti-Grav powered rockets. Yes: Lasers, Primates, Canines, Octopus, Space Travel via Solar Sails, and the rare Rocket Ship. No violence, except for the spinning meat bolas and asteroid pebbles coming to the defence of their home rock.
The Review by Matthew Olney
H2LiftShips is a totally odd read. It's not your usual sci-fi book and doesn't really play by the rules when it comes to things like plot depth or character growth. But, weirdly enough, it was engaging. It's like a wild guide to running a space trading ship, set in a future where the solar system is dotted with colonies. The author's got a quirky way with words {perhaps a bit too much}, throwing in sci-fi jargon like 'ungulates' more than once. This book is definitely a unique one but proved a bit too weird for my tastes. I DNF’d at the 32% mark.
Cultural Practices of the Heartland by Andy Crawford
The blurb –
Deep within the suburban jungle of Cincinnati, a monster has emerged, bursting out of the Rumpke Sanitary Landfill. Taking its name from its birthplace, Rumpke is a thousand feet tall, has revolting personal habits, and might be vaguely familiar to readers, considering his orange-tinged hair and proportionally tiny hands. What do Americans do when such a creature appears, lumbers around at random, and occasionally defiles a local landmark? For millions, the choice is obvious – worship it.
New York journalist Fred Millard is assigned to report on the exploits of the monster, his bizarre fandom, and the ludicrous internet conspiracy theories that have caught fire since his appearance. Fred quickly learns that the absurdity of Rumpke’s fandom leads to more serious consequences than mere internet hysteria – when serious illness starts to spread in those closest to the monster, its biggest fans refuse to follow the government’s guidance of masking and social distancing, worsening the outbreak. And most appalling of all, one conspiracy theory inspires a violent mob to assemble in Washington, DC and assault a federal building, with deadly results.
The review –
As a Brit, a lot of the political nuance of this book went right over my head and the clear dislike for a certain former US President was the heart and soul of this book. If you’re a left leaning Democrat I’m sure you’d get a kick out of a massive monster that takes the form of said President and how it, in some cases quite amusingly tries to destroy the USA. The writing was pretty good and some of the characters made me chuckle a few times, but this book just wasn’t for me and them’s the breaks when it comes to writing competitions.
The Money Cure
The blurb
What if avarice after billionaire-ism is just a subset of ordinary hoarding disorder? What if someone discovered a way to repair that? Who would benefit? Who would oppose such a cure, and how aggressively?
The Money Cure is a comic romantic adventure set in the near future, when a housing crisis forces working people, from retail employees to programmers, to live in illegal housing called underhousing.
The Review
What do you get when you have perhaps one of the most insufferable and idiotic characters and then try to make the reader feel sorry for said character?
Well, you get this book. I don’t want to be too harsh on the novel as it was pretty well written but the main character was frankly awful and I couldn’t bear to spend longer than I had to with it. I DNF’d this book at the 17% mark.
