Review: Dumb Book. Incomprehensible Character Behavior. Not Enough Research.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 05 5, 2014
My reaction to this book was very mixed, I think because the human reactions to "First Contact" and 17 "starships" appearing in orbit, provoked a collection of idiotic and incomprehensible (excepting a few) reactions by world leaders, scientists and your average "human on the street" that is so far from what I might imagine happening in the real world that I was left with a "huh, what!, Not" collection of reactions myself. The political idiocy which follows seemed illogical, distracting and really made it hard to figure out where this author was coming from and what, if any, point he was trying to make. The genre of "military sci-fi" is new to me, but I have found I'm enough of a love to blow stuff up/science nerd to seek out these kind of stories. Although I am not a member of our military, I too found the authors jumbled military organizational designations, a problem which another reviewer points out, glaringly in error, and distracted from the storyline. Hell, even I knew there was no effort to research proper military organizational structures, ranks and who belongs to what branch and does what when.This is one of those books, regardless of the genre, that leaves you at the end with a "well that was a dumb book" kind of feeling. I've seen 50's sci-fi movies that make more sense and are, once you suspend disbelief, much better plotted and characterized. Make that LOTS of 50's sci-fi movies.I love Indie authors, and hate to give them bad reviews and usually don't bother, but if you compare Nuttall with Marko Kloos, writing the same types of stories, there is no comparison. Kloos is a tight, succinct craftsman. Nuttall has a long way to go to even come close to that quality. Sorry Chris. You started out with one good idea (17 Alien Starships...uh oh).Oh BTW Chris, near the end of the book, after earlier and repeated assertations that humans were NEVER allowed to fly in alien shuttles, there is mention of a few that have had the experience. It's just a little editing/continuity check failure, but it really bugged me.