Olympus Union: The Past Repeated by Gary Bloom
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
DISCLAIMER #1: The author asked me to review this and sent me a free epub version.
DISCLAIMER #2: I asked the author to make sure this was a proofread/edited copy so as not to waste my time. Therefore, I am not holding any punches.
This was a short novel, a bit over 100 pages on my Nook.
The reason I put this on my "Abandoned" shelf and gave it one star was because by the time I was halfway through I had come across several instances of:
1) TO/TOO was misused
2) words were misused [Root instead of Route]
3) words were left out of sentences [very obvious when a sentence NEEDS a pronoun, and it isn't there]
4) extremely awkward sentence structures that left me scratching my head as to what the author meant to convey
From a literary standpoint [and while SFF might not be what the so called Literati's read, it still has to follow the rules], this was SO 'amost good'.
I liked the basis of a one world gov't divided up into 10 sections [Revelations anyone?], but the characters. Caricatures, ideas of characters, extremely well painted cardboard cutouts. But not real characters.
There are just to [or is that too?] many instances of a character acting out of character [at least from the tiny bit I knew of them]:
1) you have this lady who is supposed to be the "Peace Keeper" of the whole shebang, ie, the top Warlord.Someone who is put in a position like that is not some dewey eyed idealist. They don't have to be some Satan worshipping, baby eating Nazi, but still, a corrupt set of officials isn't going to appoint a Paragon of Virtue to that position. So why does this Lady peacekeeper come across as a do-gooder?
2) the Aries Elite character. I was under the impression that the Aries were gene-modded to be supermen without the brains or emotions. But Captain Courageous is the polar opposite of his boss, an Aries who is a fat slob sitting behind a desk. Which is correct? Superman with a brain or fat corrupt Blobbo? It can't be both, they're GENE-MODDED!, ie, it is hardwired into them.
3) Kro, the mysterious guy dressed in black. He should have been cool. Space ninja. But we get someone who is completely schizo. He can avoid the OU gov't, the rebellion AND move around the solar system as he pleases, but he's worried about having enough patience to deal with one lousy lowlife spaceship captain? For someone to BE that good, they have to have the internal & external skills already worked out. Or they would have been caught/dealt with before we get to the story.
When I started this book, I felt like it could be good; run of the mill, but enjoyable.
But obvious lack of proofing/editing and unskilled character writing killed this for me.
If you read this review, you might feel like I completely savaged Mr. Bloom. And you would be correct. I did. I didn't pick this book up on my own. I was ASKED to review it.
If you want to read it anyway, and you love it, that is great! I really hope you read the rest in his series if you do. Any comments from Mr. Bloom I will do my best to answer honestly.
But just to give fair warning, inflammatory comments will simply be deleted. I don't have the patience to deal with them. .
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