Review: "The Guardians"... an interesting beginning for this space serial... 3 1/2 Stars
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 12, 2013
"The Guardians" - Episode 1 is the first in a series of Sci-fi space adventure episodes by co-authors Linell Jeppsen and J Bryden Lloyd. The authors hope to have a new episode approx. every 6 weeks.This Kindle e-book was a 235 Kb download (approx. 49 printed pages) and sold for $0.99 at the time of writing this review.Please Note: the author provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.Spoilers: (general theme)Space exploration has been well developed for ages, and a group of different races (collectively known as the 'League') have collaborated to look after security in the 'Eight Galaxies' region.Things have been relatively quiet until an aggressive alien race begins picking off populated planet one by one. Their goal is not one of expansion but that of food... and rather than eat their enemies they suck them dry. So it's left to Onio of the Sasquatch clan to lead a multinational space-force against these new invaders.End SpoilersSome thoughts on "The Guardians"...1.) generally well written with a particularly tense and exciting opening chapter.2.) some good battles and confrontations... graphically described but not to excess.3.) no coarse or vulgar language.4.) cover art... an appropriate and representative image for a space saga.5.) a definitive ending for this episode but with a connection event for the next installment.Concerns:1.) while I liked this overall story, I started to get the feeling as I got deeper into the book, that good guys were going to prevail... no matter how risky or short sighted their plans might have been. And correspondingly, the alien forces were just in for a bad day... with nearly every decision they made going against them. The overall effect was like that of reading a space adventure, but the lite version... I felt like I was reading comic book or watching a Saturday morning cartoon show that was being developed into a weekly serial.2.) I was also concerned the way this episode ended... almost appearing to be a stand-alone or isolated story. To me a good series provides great installments ending in some sort of cliffhanger but with each episode generally working towards some end-goal at its concluding book... let's hope this is the case here.As of now, looking forward to the second episode.As it is... 3 1/2 StarsRay Nicholsonralannicholson@hotmail.com@ralannicholson