I recently joined Net Galley and headed to the "Read Now" section and came across Phoenix by T.S. Alexander. The plot summary enticed me enough to download it and immediately start reading it.
I love a good sci-fi and this book endeavored to take a new approach on space exploration and contacting a superior alien race. I was pleasantly surprised by the concept and the world building.
The premise of the book is alternated into two POVs: Ellandra's the current Queen of Chaos visiting a city on a Dominion planet and the human's of the incoming spaceship as they realize they're about to make contact with an alien species. The Haillar have 'magic' or eka as well as advanced technology, but to the humans they appear primitive and medieval. It's an interesting interaction where the writing portrays the cliche all american trying to stake his claim and the starry eyed scientists excited to learn more.
Among the species getting to know each other a threat looms on the horizon, preparing to attack the city; mind controlling and powerful Scrouge aliens.
I love the idea of avatars and the queens coming back as something different if they die or at the end of a cycle. It had a fresh, new feel to it in this book.
The book is pretty fast paced, delightfully unpredictable in some parts and has a good ending that does set up for a compelling series.
I liked how the humans noted that with the type of technology the aliens possess it lowers the pollution and creates a better quality of life, something Earth desperately needs.
Although I found the feudal system of the alien species confusing at first, the writer did a good job of touching on characters positions throughout the story frequently enough that I felt I could grasp an understanding of the world they're trying to build. I really hope the physical book will include a map of some sort! I think that will enrich the story. However, there was a "Haillar Timeline" and the Current Haillar Queens written into the end of the book and that was both interesting and helpful.
I really liked Ellandra's character, she felt strong and real and you can tell the writer put thought into her. Peter and the other 'humans' fell flat to me.
There was a large information dump at the beginning of the book, both about the alien race and the people on the space shuttle. It is a lot of names to try and remember and connect jobs and positions to. Like I said though, for the most part the writing touches back on the titles and positions of most characters. I encourage readers to take notes while reading this book.
The chapters are literally in different points of view, as in Ellandra's is in first person and then it switches to omniscient third person for 'Peter' even though there are many points of view breaches in Peter's chapters. I've never read a book that's done this before, and I admit it was confusing and awkward at first, but it seemed to work for this book.
Near the end of the book for some reason the dialogue changed and there were next to no descriptions or action tags of who was talking and it was just jumping all over the place from character to character and it felt like the reader had to figure out who was talking. It took away from the story a bit. I also found the writing inconsistent: it felt like the word 'the' was misunderstood. Sometimes it would be 'the visitors' or just 'visitors' and the same for many other words. I found it disconcerting.
I hope by the time this becomes published as a physical book or sold for money that the many grammar, punctuation and spelling errors get resolved. I was disappointed to see so many and the writing became so clunky, it sometimes felt like a different person was writing different chapters. A great story that needs some serious editing done.
I gave it 3 stars on goodread, but truthfully it's more of a 2.5/5 because I wasn't a fan of the writing style and lack of editing, but the story idea and concept is great and I see potential!
Comments