Scan barcode
marcelozanca's review
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
sarcastic_cat's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
errantdreams's review
3.0
There’s a bit of a dropped plot thread from the beginning. There’s a bit about how people with built-in HUDs have “life feeds”, which are basically a recording of their lives uploaded to the internet or whatever they have. It’s something the police can access. Ben finds a few hours of his life feed are missing at the beginning of the book, which he comments just shouldn’t happen, and then it’s never brought up again. Even if it’s going to come back in a later book, it would have been nice to see some indication that it wasn’t a throw-away line.
The prose feels too… careful, for most of the book. It just kind of tiptoes along, and the pace never seems to vary. It’s the narrative equivalent of a monotone. The presence of a couple of infodumps doesn’t help this. The entire tone is monotonous for much of the book. After the hyperactivity of Lucky’s Marines, this is a disappointment.
The characters don’t entirely appeal to me. Lee Saito is probably on stage the most, and yet he’s like a slice of Wonder Bread: bland and uninteresting. Whereas Ben Saito is obnoxious and not entirely likable. Probably the only point-of-view character I liked was PFC Ada Ericsson (a marine).
There are aliens in here, but they seem like they’re meant to be much creepier than they actually are. I feel like this is an attempt at Aliens-style military SF-horror, but it falls woefully short on the horror aspect. Maybe an improvement in pacing and tone would have fixed this. It also would have helped to have more attachment to the characters.
The basic story is good, and I’m still waffling on whether I want to read more of the series since the pacing does pick up in the last quarter of the book. I’m tempted to think that most of what I liked about this book was just the fact that it hits my horror/SF itch, rather than any inherent goodness.
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/10/review-lost-mission-joshua-james-daniel-young/
The prose feels too… careful, for most of the book. It just kind of tiptoes along, and the pace never seems to vary. It’s the narrative equivalent of a monotone. The presence of a couple of infodumps doesn’t help this. The entire tone is monotonous for much of the book. After the hyperactivity of Lucky’s Marines, this is a disappointment.
The characters don’t entirely appeal to me. Lee Saito is probably on stage the most, and yet he’s like a slice of Wonder Bread: bland and uninteresting. Whereas Ben Saito is obnoxious and not entirely likable. Probably the only point-of-view character I liked was PFC Ada Ericsson (a marine).
There are aliens in here, but they seem like they’re meant to be much creepier than they actually are. I feel like this is an attempt at Aliens-style military SF-horror, but it falls woefully short on the horror aspect. Maybe an improvement in pacing and tone would have fixed this. It also would have helped to have more attachment to the characters.
The basic story is good, and I’m still waffling on whether I want to read more of the series since the pacing does pick up in the last quarter of the book. I’m tempted to think that most of what I liked about this book was just the fact that it hits my horror/SF itch, rather than any inherent goodness.
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/10/review-lost-mission-joshua-james-daniel-young/
More...