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Rob Ziegler

Author of Seed

2+ Works 296 Members 19 Reviews

Works by Rob Ziegler

Seed (2011) 253 copies
The Burning Light (2016) — Author — 43 copies

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Common Knowledge

Gender
male
Nationality
USA

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This story is set in a post-apocalyptic world in the 22nd century that has become a wasteland where migrants roam across the country just trying to stay alive for one more day. The only hope they have is to find one of the government warehouses that distribute climate resistant seeds developed by the Satori Corporation. But Satori is much more than that - it is a living city with a sinister purpose.

I loved the premise of this book, but let me just say, it took me a bit longer to read it than I would have hoped because it had A LOT of extraneous information in it. The plot was intriguing, the world building was phenomenal, and the characters were well written, but it got bogged down with too much detail. About halfway through it picked up the pace and I was able to read it pretty quickly, it just took some determination to get to that point.

In summary, I enjoyed this book once the pace picked up about halfway through. I felt it got bogged down in unnecessary details prior to this point, but still ended up enjoying it.

4/5 stars.
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jwitt33 | 15 other reviews | May 14, 2022 |
This novella requires patience - it takes awhile to figure out what is going on and to realize how the world ended up how it did - and in places the writing can be a bit rough.

Some time in the future, huge parts of USA (and probably the world) are under water and humanity had developed a wait of people to stay connected mentally (it is never made clear if it was genetics or implants) and had split into small groups, fully connected inside of these groups, even growing babies to do the jobs needed. And then the Light showed up - burning a person's connection to the world but being addictive enough to actually make people crave it.

Two women get caught into the Light - one of them lost everything but escaped and is now chasing the Light and its influence as part of a military operation and the other decided to give up and live with it. Except that nothing is that easy.

The big mystery is what the Light is - a drug or a religion or something else completely. And we get the answer at the end - not entirely surprising but not disappointing either. The characters and the world details serve as a background to that big question - which makes the novella less character-driven than it could have been (even if at least a few of the characters are developed enough to make someone care about them).

I was not sure what to expect from this novella - it is obviously a science fiction one while Beaulieu is a fantasy author. So I kept wondering of it will go into something else - but it stays strictly science fiction (and post apocalyptic). It won't be for everyone but I quite enjoyed it.
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½
 
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AnnieMod | 2 other reviews | Jul 26, 2021 |
This book left me confused. If your interested in following a story that is basically about a bunch of junkies addicted to something called The Light and an exiled government worker he’ll bent on revenge, then this is for you. If not, I would pass it up.

The thing that bothered me most about this book was that I have honest to god no idea what the hell The Light is, aside from it leaving people strung out and addicted to it. The Light is never really fully explained, it’s all so vague and it just leaves an empty feeling when the story is over.

None of the characters were that interesting and frankly I’m confused as to what happened to two of them at the end. Like are they are dead? Or they just like Zola now? Did they vanish? What the hell happened to them? They just disappeared after the final events of the story and I don’t like that. Their role was considered pivotal to the plot and yet there is no closure as to what happened, why??

It felt slow and dragged on a times and other times it felt like descriptions were being dragged out, to the point of feeling like I wasn’t sure what was trying to be told to me. You don’t always need a huge paragraph to describe something. Also felt like some paragraphs were just written as an excuse to throw in a long string of complicated sounding words.

I’m not even sure I would say this is an interesting plot, the execution leaves much to be desired with the lack of real explanation, I just felt like I knew nothing when it was over.

I’ll be honest the gorgeous cover art by my favorite artist is what I liked most about this book.
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SweetKokoro | 2 other reviews | Jul 31, 2020 |
You can read my review of this book at the New York Journal of Books: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/seed
 
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CarmaSpence | 15 other reviews | Jul 26, 2018 |

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Works
2
Also by
1
Members
296
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Rating
½ 3.4
Reviews
19
ISBNs
5

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