Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsThe Non-Hero Book
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2018
In an afterward, the author explains his motive for this book: to create a non-violent cerebral science fiction work. He has succeeded in that goal. There is violence but as the author notes, it’s not started by the protagonist.
I found the premise appealing. What turns out to be aliens who are vastly superior in technology (and maybe more) to us discover Earth. This is the polar opposite of a typical space opera fare where they either are mostly English speaking comely females longing to mate with the captain or grotesque monsters bent on our destruction. These guys want to chat.
The majority of the book is not only the difficulties chatting with an alien and a side note business about the worldwide civil unrest the existence on Earth of an alien causes. Curiously, the author dismisses the John McClane character from movies such as Die Hard as a figure not to admire anymore due to his method of conflict resolution. However, there are two scenes in the book where John McClane would have saved the day but the protagonist does nothing of the sort.
The book starts out in a roar, maintains its pace for a bit and then wanders until the very end where a crisis creates an ending. The text is rampant with typos and word misuse. The thing which really bothers me is, at the very end, the protagonist gets a message which can be interpreted in many ways. He chooses a way that I doubt anybody would guess and in the end, there wasn’t any reason for the vagueness of the message anyway. It cratered the book for me.
My idea of a protagonist is not some cowering metrosexual who has to have his girlfriend bail him out of a major crisis. Give me John McClane.
