Eliza Green

I was offered a reviewer's copy of Becoming Human by the author Eliza Green in exchange for an honest review.

The book begins with a cinematic, omniscient view of Exilon 5 as it is terraformed by humans in an attempt to create a second Earth. We get to see the devastating effects of the chemicals used on the indigenous race there which sets a very dramatic tone compared to a very under-dramatic pace of the rest of the book. I really liked the ideas presented within Becoming Human: the show more ethical issues of attempting to eliminate an indigenous race in the name of human survival, the intelligent aliens, as well as the way the characters tried to resolve things without resorting to killing each other. Both the humans and the Indigenes take a rational approach and try to learn about each other instead of heading straight into conflict, which was really refreshing to see.

Unfortunately, Becoming Human has a few major issues that cause the book to fall short. The first of which is the constant shifting of POV and the overwhelming amount of characters involved. In the beginning, I found it quite disorienting, as just as I was getting settled into a character and their story it switched to another, and another, and another, and another, which drastically cut down on my ability to care about each character. I wanted to hear more about Bill and his wife as there was an actual emotional connection there and something to sympathize with, but it kept switching away so by the time the story returned to him it was hard to focus. In that same vein, although I liked the scene of the alien and the young boy meeting, the boy's POV never came back again, in fact he had nothing else to do with the story, and thus made his POV feel pointless. Why did I get invested in him as a character with his mom, if he didn't have any sort of part in the story?

The second fatal flaw was the lack of tension. There wasn't enough build up of anticipation and what attempts that were thrown in were cliches. "If only she knew what would be coming next..." Those types of lines are so overused that they don't hold any power to create tension anymore. The plot also crawled at a snail's pace, focusing more on explaining things than providing any action. I could probably sum up every action in the story in a paragraph, which is really quite scary for a full length novel.

The final issue I had with the book was the simple fact that it wasn't finished. Every book, no matter where it stands in a series, must be able to stand on its own as a compete story. But Becoming Human wasn't the full story. Honestly, I believe the climax of the story (in which all our POV characters collide) should have been the inciting incident. The book leaves off with several main characters racing off to find out the truth on Exilon 5, when in reality that was the story I expected in this book. It's when the story can actually begin. Coupled with the slow action and lack of tension, it felt like filler just to force the reader to buy the second book to get the story they were promised. All this book did was raise questions, and then answer a few questions no one asked, which only raised even more questions and did little to give any sense of a conclusion.

All in all, 2/5 stars. Definitely some potential, but some fundamental writing flaws hold the story back. show less

What started as a visit to a country town to interview people suddenly turned weird when a tea shop owner poured a pot of hot tea into Jonathan's lap. I was hooked at that moment. More weird events followed. I couldn't help thinking this guy was developing schizophrenia because of the paranoia Jonathan seemed to be experiencing. But there seemed to be more to it than that. The twist at the end was good and filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle. I give this story 4 stars out of 5.

Hard to review this book. I think my score would be more a 3.5, but I like to support indie authors, so an extra half.

There's a LOT of exposition. Too much, I think. There are a million POV characters, to the point I lost track of who was who several times. There are so many story threads it's hard to follow, and the entire first 2/3 of the book feels like world building, backstory and in some places, filler. And yet...The story is great, many of the characters are very likeable and as the show more first book in a trilogy, I would expect the majority of the world building and background is done now, and the next two books will be more like the final third of this one.

And that final third really shines. The writing crisped up, the dialogue too, the action and pacing sped up and yet evened out as well, and all the threads that were not entirely making sense to me earlier in the book, came together into a whole.

Probably the best indie sci-fi I've ever read, I really enjoyed it, and I will be looking out for the rest of the series.(Disclosure: Picked it up as a freebie from the Amazon daily free books)

NB: This review was written in 2012. I am not sure I'd still rate this the best indie sci-fi I've ever read, but it's probably still up there in the top ten or so. show less

DISSENT: I'm not normally a Sci-Fic reader, but I’ve read 8 books now by author Eliza Green. I'm a character reader and Eliza Green really gets into character development and the intrigue in her books. With having read all those books by this author it didn’t take me long to settle into this short story set between books #1 & #2 of the Feeder saga. The problem with short stories is just that, they’re short! Read in the overall expanse of the Feeder saga this short story fleshes out and show more expands the saga and therefore is more satisfying. No spoilers here though, buy the books, read the books (all of them), review the books, get into a good author I have!

INTENT: I'm not normally a Sci-Fic reader, but I’ve now read 9 books by Eliza Green. I'm a character reader and Eliza Green really gets into character development and the intrigue in her books. With having read all those books by this author it didn’t take me long to settle into another POV short story set between books #1 & #2 of the Feeder saga. The problem with short stories is just that, they’re short! Read in the overall expanse of the Feeder saga this well-written short story fleshes out and expands the saga and therefore is more satisfying. No spoilers here though, buy the books, read the books (all of them), review the books, get into a good author I have! show less