Review: Their lives at risk, a diplomatic race tries to complete their mission!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2014
We begin as a spaceship descends into a planetary atmosphere, where Gatr and Litr, members of the diplomatic race called the Yeitr, try to keep their ship in one piece. Why are they being fired upon? Their mission is completely peaceful, as it is their job to seek out new life and new civilizations...Ahem. ***clears humorous Star Trek reference from throat***As I was saying, to go to new planets and peacefully bring them into an alliance of like-minded cultures. Not everything goes according to plan, though, as suddenly, they only have a limited amount of time left to complete the mission or otherwise, they'll have to abort it!The author utilizes flashbacks to move away from the action and develop the culture and provide some character background on our protagonists. He's able to flesh them out nicely in only a space of a few pages and explains their strong motivation to succeed while interspersing this into the suspenseful narrative of their dire predicament in the present time. I found this to be an effective method of telling the story; while I kept wanting to get back to the action, the flashbacks enriched the characters, made the culture more real and caused me to be much more invested in their fates.I loved the awesome twist at the end which then answered any and all lingering questions I might have had about what the way events happened and why. As for the inspiration of the story, that's a nifty explanation too.Overall, I found this to be an engaging and enjoyable short story with an unpredictable ending! And I think you will too. :)