Review: Great start and no follow-up
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 21, 2011
The best of "Anomaly", a short, indie Kindle-only novel for $0.99, is in the basic concept, thoroughly explained in Amazon's product description and in the first few pages of the novel itself.  Sadly, there is very little to follow.  The science in the science fiction is minimal.  We never do get to find out exactly what the Anomaly is, how it works, where it came from etc.  The two principal protagonists, Teller, an elementary school teacher, and Cathy, a journalist, are paper thin, and thrust into extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, for example, being asked to represent NASA/big science and the US government in a world-televised meeting with a large group of religious leaders on the spur of the moment with no script and no preparation.  In what universe could that ever happen?  And the arguments back and forth with the various religious leaders have all been said before, many, many times.  The political/governmental aspects are pretty hard to imagine as well - the UN invading the US!!There is a development midway through the book concerning the Anomaly, but again, its science and implications are not well thought out.  All I'll say is that it involves biology, but the motivation behind it is very murky.  Finally, the ending, while surprising, makes no sense at all, even in the universe that the author has created.The writing is only fair, and the reader gets jarred out of the story when the author repeatedly makes mistakes like referring to the head of the UN as the "General-Secretary" instead of the "Secretary-General"  For $0.99 I do not expect top-of-the-line writing, but I do expect a little more research, verisimilitude and editing.JM Tepper