Darrell Bain

Rubbish.

My first thought was "this must be an advance review copy because they wouldn't publish it like this and expect it to sell, would they?"

It's poorly written. Nearly every page or two there is a "thought-break" because the story is told by a series of scenes, and each scene is separated by a break. The author is not capable of carrying a single scene, or thread, for longer than a couple pages.

It's not original prose by any means. From page 41 "... the underground tanks of diesel fuel show more hadn't been torched like so many of the buildings in the orgy of wanton destruction." Orgy of wanton destruction? Are you kidding me? Did he pull this straight out of a 70s novel?

I think the book attempts to have the same tone as One Second After, but, unlike that book, the premise to this one is ridiculous. Not only is there a plague that selects on skin color (ok, I'll suspend disbelief for a minute), but once the public realizes this, all the affected people (mainly blacks) riot and start killing every white person they find. Err... that's supposed to be logical? Oh, wait, they don't kill everyone... of course, they kidnap and plan for the serial raping of all the white women they can find.

I'm going to stop now, because the book is actually much worse than what I've indicated here... and even the author's "apology" in the Afterword for the portrayed negative attitudes didn't eliminate the horrible stink this book left behind. show less

I kept wanting to look at the author's name again, to be sure I wasn't actually reading an old Heinlein novel updated with some 21st century concepts like throwaway cell phones. That's not a bad thing, depending on how far along Mr. Bain is in his own career, I suppose. I'm not really familiar with him, as I believe this is the first of his novels that I've read. In any case, it was a fun read, if a wee bit predictable to those of us who have read the master's works.

I'm not going to say too much so I don't get yelled at as has happened before. Suffice it to say the writers have a great future writing for the adult film industry. Like many indie books this has a number of typos; the writers should learn the difference between "succeed" and "secede" for instance. Maybe because of all the graphic sex I found all the characters unpleasant. The first one to go through a gate and change his/her sex was the worst. He goes through the gate and becomes a woman, show more promptly turns into a whore, and that's pretty much her only function. A main character goes through, becomes a woman, has sex with everyone, and then we skip forward 3 years, so it didn't really add much.

There was a forehead-slapping moment where that character named Lee goes from a boy to a girl and they all get together and decide to change her name to Li. What? I checked this on a couple baby name sites and Lee is listed as a unisex name. Duh. Lee would be a lot less confusing than Li, where they'd probably think she was Asian, bringing to mind an old Seinfeld episode involving that scenario. That was about the moment I lost all confidence in the authors.

At least by the end we sorta find out what the gates are, though it was kind of obvious; I think the various incarnations of Star Trek did it a number of times. I don't understand the decision to set it in the future as that only creates confusion that makes it harder to grasp the impact of these weird gates appearing from nowhere. And I could have done without the Limbaugh-esque junk about those entitled poor people receiving government handouts. I would invite the authors to try to live on Social Security or welfare and see how entitled you feel.

I've probably said too much. Oh well.

That is all. show less

Shape-shifting aliens intersecting with humans in this hard-SF-cum-mil-SF first novel of a series.