Review: "The Osiris Revelations" Is A Case of "Been There, Done That!"
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 2, 2014
Let me start with a kudo first. A.J. Marshall is an excellent writer whose work "The Osiris Revelations" exhibits sparks of brilliant writing.With that said, there's another side of this coin and that is "The Osiris Revelations" is also a case of "been there, done that!"If you've read as many great science fiction authors as I have -- Anderson, Heinlein, Asimov, for example -- you see various aspects of the science fiction genre handled so well, you wonder if those authors can be improved upon. Of course, new authors appear all the time who are just waiting to join the pantheon of great sci-fi writers and I think with some more work A.J.  Marshall may be on the brink. However, I believe "The Osiris Revelations" is just a fair step in his growth as a writer. It seems a pale version other work.I refer you to the work of Arthur Clarke's classic "2001, A Space Odyssey" and its progeny. They have stood the test of time (one of the marks of great writing). However, "The Osiris Revelations" seems to be an echo of Clarke's landmark work. Granted, it is a very high standard for any writer to hit and with time Marshall may do it, but his work still seems a case of "been there, done that " although Clarke, to be fair, did set his background on Jupiter.The essence of Osiris is based on Mars. It deals with a mysterious object and its translation and some mysterious power crystals that may solve Earth's power dilemma and the consortium's interested in this project. There's also murder, a little romance and a few other things that, all things being equal, are handled very well by Marshall.However, who can forget the skill with which Clarke has HAL the artificially intelligent computer set out to murder the crewmen  who would keep him from doing his job? HAL, you see, had outgrown his creators -- men -- and Clarke's handling of the demise of various crewmen is classic. It goes on until the remaining members of the crew devise a plan to get to HAL's artificial intelligence memory core chips and as they slowly pull his memory chips out, the computer plaintively asks "Dave, Dave what are you doing...."Conversely, Marshall's handling of a bungled murder attempt is decent but not spectacular.To be sure, I did feel it I owed the Marshall the benefit of the doubt in my comparison so I re-read and re-watched 2001 (films are never as good as the books they portray) and after reading and viewing I still hold my opinion.Don't get me wrong,  A.J. Marshall is a very good  writer who knows how to create realistic characters, decent back stories and storylines and has a knack for the occasional interesting twist  -- the aluminoid-plastic manual, for example.I would honestly love to see more Marshall work as I believe he is on the brink of excellence achieved by few authors. It's just that "The Osiris Revelations" doesn't do that for me.You won't go wrong with "The Osiris Revelations" as it is a decent  tale, however, don't be surprised if the entire novel feels vaguely similar to other science fiction you may have read.