Alan's "Whatever" Blog

Just a Couple of Thoughts

To start, I want to say that I really enjoyed reading this book.  The writing was well done, the characters were well fleshed out and felt like they could be real people(that's a biggy with me), and the authors description of the different setting was also very well done.  

I'm not too sure about the author himself though, I looked at a couple of his other books and he has a series called "The Cathouse Series", with titles like "Patriotic Whore"and "A Hooker Spy".  I'm thinking there're supposed to be a kind of comedy, but they don't sound like anything I'm going to be going gaga over anytime soon.  Also the author had a message to the readers at the end of the book asking for donations so he could stay home and write the sequel.  I'm still not sure how I feel about that, I mean I did pay for the book already, and I'll be glad to write this review in hopes that it helps him sell more copies.

I really only had one minor nag against the actual book, and  might be a coincidence.  See I'm a gamer, and one of my favorite games is the Mass Effect series.  The protagonist of the Mass Effect series' name is Shepherd, and based on the decisions you make throughout the game Shepherd's personality can change between a nice guy or kind of a jerk.  If he's a nice guy he's a "Paragon", if he's a jerk then he's considered a "Renegade".  In this book one of the main characters(not the main protagonist) name is in fact "Shepherd", and his character embodies everything that the Shepherd of Mass Effect stood for.  For me it was an instant connection between the two, everything from the way he was described to the way his amor looked in the battle scenes.  His official title is even "Paragon".  Maybe it's me, or maybe they really are coincidence I couldn't really tell you.

All in all I liked the book and will gladly read the sequel once it does come out.  I encourage anyone who likes YA, Sci-Fi, or a combination, to do yourselves a favor and put this on your "want to read" list because it will not disappoint.