Take a photo of a barcode or cover
wordsofclover 's review for:
Eric Olafson : Space Pirate
by Vanessa Ravencroft
I received a free copy of this book from Inkitt Press in exchange for an honest review.
Eric Olafson is about to graduate from space academy when he is abducted and almost killed. What follows is a sci-fi space adventure where Olafson has to don a number of different disguises, battle slave traders, man his own crew and just try and keep himself alive.
This book was pitched to me as a stand alone novel but it's actually the fifth book in the Eric Olafson series. Despite this, I did find myself almost able to keep up with everything though tehre were definite things mentioned such as past events and characters that the reader was evidently suppose to already know about and I didn't.
I have to be honest here, and it's a shame I feel this way because this book was kindly sent to me for review. This book is not good. It's badly edited and even more badly written. The book, in my opinion, needs several more rounds of editing before it's even fit to be read by a wider audience and while I expect some mistakes in proof copies (I'm not even sure if the copy I have is a proof as it doesn't state on it) but this was jam-packed full of grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors that had me cringing. But not even all the editing in the world could fix what is, in the end, a badly written story - most sentence structure was off, the conversations didn't seem realistic and neither did a lot of character reaction.
However, DESPITE ALL THE BAD, kept reading this book until the end and that says something. This is a book I would normally DNF after a few chapters given the state of the writing and the more than a little confusing world and I probably would have DNF'd if it was a Kindle book but there was something about the story that kept my interest peaked and I wasn't ready to let go of it yet. So I read it all. Even though the writing in this book is terrible, I think the bones of the story are actually full of potential. It just needs a lot, a lot , of work.
Eric Olafson is one of these characters I hate and love at the same time. He's brave, loyal and kind and I have to love that but he's one these characters that always has something happen to them but always miracuously gets out of it and is the best at everything while doing it. And that gets a bit boring after a while. There was also a lot of mentions of Eric's dual sexuality. He seems to struggle a bit in the book and keeps mentioning this female side that comes to the forefront when, in several points during the book, he has to disguise himself in a female body. I'm not sure if this was a play on transgender issues, or gender fluidity and while I like that it was touched on, I don't think it was developed enough and just left me feeling a bit confused about the whole thing. There was also something a bit misogynistic said at one point in the book - I think by a female character - that had me feeling all sorts of wrong. "Sadly, ninety-nine percent of all women can't separate their emotion from their rational thoughts and that's why women still struggle for equality in terms of perception even in the 51st Century." What?
At the end of the day, unfortunately this is a book I cannot recommend to anyone. The only reason this is a two-star instead of a one-star is the fact that I actually wanted to finish the book rather than just DNF-ing it.
Eric Olafson is about to graduate from space academy when he is abducted and almost killed. What follows is a sci-fi space adventure where Olafson has to don a number of different disguises, battle slave traders, man his own crew and just try and keep himself alive.
This book was pitched to me as a stand alone novel but it's actually the fifth book in the Eric Olafson series. Despite this, I did find myself almost able to keep up with everything though tehre were definite things mentioned such as past events and characters that the reader was evidently suppose to already know about and I didn't.
I have to be honest here, and it's a shame I feel this way because this book was kindly sent to me for review. This book is not good. It's badly edited and even more badly written. The book, in my opinion, needs several more rounds of editing before it's even fit to be read by a wider audience and while I expect some mistakes in proof copies (I'm not even sure if the copy I have is a proof as it doesn't state on it) but this was jam-packed full of grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors that had me cringing. But not even all the editing in the world could fix what is, in the end, a badly written story - most sentence structure was off, the conversations didn't seem realistic and neither did a lot of character reaction.
However, DESPITE ALL THE BAD, kept reading this book until the end and that says something. This is a book I would normally DNF after a few chapters given the state of the writing and the more than a little confusing world and I probably would have DNF'd if it was a Kindle book but there was something about the story that kept my interest peaked and I wasn't ready to let go of it yet. So I read it all. Even though the writing in this book is terrible, I think the bones of the story are actually full of potential. It just needs a lot, a lot , of work.
Eric Olafson is one of these characters I hate and love at the same time. He's brave, loyal and kind and I have to love that but he's one these characters that always has something happen to them but always miracuously gets out of it and is the best at everything while doing it. And that gets a bit boring after a while. There was also a lot of mentions of Eric's dual sexuality. He seems to struggle a bit in the book and keeps mentioning this female side that comes to the forefront when, in several points during the book, he has to disguise himself in a female body. I'm not sure if this was a play on transgender issues, or gender fluidity and while I like that it was touched on, I don't think it was developed enough and just left me feeling a bit confused about the whole thing. There was also something a bit misogynistic said at one point in the book - I think by a female character - that had me feeling all sorts of wrong. "Sadly, ninety-nine percent of all women can't separate their emotion from their rational thoughts and that's why women still struggle for equality in terms of perception even in the 51st Century." What?
At the end of the day, unfortunately this is a book I cannot recommend to anyone. The only reason this is a two-star instead of a one-star is the fact that I actually wanted to finish the book rather than just DNF-ing it.