Review: The premise is interesting
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 15, 2014
This book follows Timmy, the son of an archaeologist, who on a dig in Africa, discovers an amulet with powers beyond his wildest imagination. Soon, he’s using these powers for his own end, traveling down a destructive path, which he may not come back from.Sounds like an interesting premise. Unfortunately, the problems begin right from the outset. One of the biggest is the narrative. Not just editing issues, like missing punctuation or such. I could overlook those to a degree. In fact, those are near insignificant compared to the run-on sentences, use of large or unusual words for no reason, confusing chronology, and brief glances over everything instead of letting the story breathe and develop.For example, “He and Cecil had a great amount of work to complete just getting their equipment assembled and situated for their important work ahead - anything else after that would be a fringe benefit whether meeting a nice young lady , talking to the local populace, or contemplating the land of hidden secrets.” Run-ons like this constant. As are using imponderable in “These were the imponderable questions this young man faced” or factoid in “For one important factoid, it is the home of the Maasai tribe” where “serious” or “fact” would simply do.The story loves to jump around as well. Sometimes, you’ll be completely lost afterwards. Other times, you’re told everything right after it jumps forward. Within the first several chapters, it skips ahead a total of twenty-two years. But rather than sprinkle throughout the narrative what happened over that time period, it will stop and tell you everything in one long paragraph.In fact, long paragraphs are another issue, sometimes running on for more than one page. And within these paragraphs, you may change points of view several times, never sticking to one character.The characters are another of the major problems. They’re underdeveloped. We’re told about the characters, but we never see the characters. We never get to really know or connect to them. Even the main character is still a mystery by the end. His reactions to situations are told, but he goes from a guy who’s angry about a tragedy to over-the-top evil seemingly with very little progression. He’s not the only one, as other characters jump to extreme emotions or acts with very little provocation. Not much is shown of the characters themselves throughout the story and many interactions which could provide character development are told about in the narrative instead.Then again, whenever there is a conversation, it never feels natural. Characters either talk like they’re part of a play, voicing every thought or motivation, or their speech is so strange that it’s alienating. One instance in particular that stuck out was when a man asks the main character if a seat on a plane next to him is taken. The main character laughs and tells the man he had a feeling he would ask him that. The man says, and I quote, “I know what you mean. I don’t believe in coincidences so that means you and I are meant to be passenger mates for our ride.” And that’s only a side character. Others have odder speech, like vicious gangsters using the term “youngster” in a way that wouldn’t even fit a prohibition era mob. Not once did I ever buy any of the romance between the lead and his girlfriend, the love between family members, or much of any other emotion.But there is that premise. That premise is really the only thing that I have to give at least a star and a half for— which I’ll round up to two. The entire story follows a young man on this self-destructive journey as the power he finds corrupts him. It’s an interesting idea that could work and raises questions like what would you do with that power? Would you use it for yourself? For others? Could you resist the temptation to use it for unethical means? Unfortunately, this, too, is in danger of becoming lost, as within the second half of the book, the plot starts to take some strange turns. Plot points are brought up and dropped and the ending just really goes off the rails into an unexpected territory. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the ending, but it just comes out of nowhere.Again, the basic premise of a person falling to an absolute power could work. It’s just nearly buried beneath all the problems. With heavy editing, that premise could come through and make for a good story about that power destroying a person’s life. As it is, it’s trapped in a story that falls short of realizing it.