Rating: 3/5

Genre: Sci-Fi

Recommended Age: 16+ (complex sci-fi themes, language, violence, discussion of heavy topics)

I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the author. All opinions are my own.

The future isn’t what it used to be for Tony Calanis Palermo. He’s a man with a past. It has been a long fall from a member of the most clandestine branch of Lunar Intelligence to a mere able spaceman first class aboard a merchant starship. But after his latest misadventure, it will be an even longer fall to working out a long term indenture on a backwater sugar plantation. In fact, it would be a death sentence. Except that he’s just been offered a single chance at freedom: If he uses his skills to obtain the language key of the mysterious, and dead, alien Galactic race before anyone else can get it. That anyone else may include, but may not strictly be limited to, interplanetary policorps, super soldiers, genetically modified assassins, heavily armed colonial revolutionaries, and the combined military might of the Union of Man. Enough trouble for anyone’s plate, perhaps. But once on the ground, Tony discovers the still functioning personality daemon of a quasi-religious mutant criminal megalomaniac that had once tried to start World War Four just before Tony . . . killed her. Turns out, that’s a problem. Only he also decides to rescue an indentured savant slave girl and her dying pet Angel. Has he finally bitten off more than he can chew? But the real question is: Can he stay alive long enough to succeed? - Amazon.com

Do you ever think that there should be a high science fiction genre kind of like there is for fantasy? I think this book would definitely qualify as a high science fiction novel because it has so many complex science fiction themes in it. Much more than a newbie like me could handle. I had to unfortunately DNF this book because I became very confused in the world, but I did like some things about this novel. I thought the writing was very well done. The characters are well developed as well. You can tell the author has a talent for writing and can craft an amazing story. I also thought the plot was very intriguing and interesting. For the book being as detailed as it was, the book didn’t suffer from pacing problems. The book was really good.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into the book. I consider myself a novice sci-fi reader and I just couldn’t grasp the book at all. It wasn’t that the book was boring, but I did feel that it was a bit complex. The book discusses a lot of heavy subjects such as over population and it kind of glosses over a lot of them. The book also throws a lot of things at the main character and he unrealistically solves the majority of them. While I did feel the characters were well developed, I did think they were unrealistic at times. I also felt that while the plot was too complex for my liking.

Verdict: Overall, this was a good book but because there were so many things happening in the book (that could easily fill 3-4 books on its own and probably should be separated into other books) I had to DNF the book. I’m going to blame my failure on my new emergence into the sci-fi genre. If you enjoy sci-fi then you’ll more than likely love this book! If you’re not a big sci-fi reader then you might not enjoy it as much. However, I encourage you to give the book a try regardless.