Review: Seeds: Destruction or Survival
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 5, 2014
Canadian author Jacob R. Blacquiere makes his literary debut at a very young age. Barely 21 years old and having left university after one year he is devoting his attention and time to working to support himself while he embraces his dream of writing. Some writers at this young age have obvious yet correctable flaws in their first outings with the written word, but Jacob surprises with an amazingly fluid style and an authority with style that suggests he may be a new name to watch. He is beginning correctly by self publishing in the Kindle format and tending to his promotion by a very well designed website. All of these are signs of a serious author with a future.Whether Blacquiere intends to embrace science fiction as his genre in the future remains to be seen. But in this his first outing, FRACTURED MAN, he is able to create one of those post-apocalyptic atmospheres that either works or stretches credibility past the elastic limit. For Blacquiere he seems to understand the necessary requisites to keep our attention and characters about whom we can care. The plot is a secure one and original: after Earth has been nearly abandoned for centuries evolved humans touch down from some outer space place, unwelcome visitors with plans to destroy the remaining inhabitants of Earth.  They confront a weary Earth survivor - Winston Fatel - and his small but dedicated band of the remnants of the Earth that is slowly dying. Their communal goal is to restore Earth to its former grace and are of course placed in conflict with the visiting `terrorist' humans from space.  Human versus altered human - who will survive?It doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to transpose the conflict Blacquiere sets in motion with the various like conflicts we are facing now - humans versus the environment, great powers against great powers, the growing distance between those who have wealth and those survivors who do not. Perhaps this is stretching Blacquiere's intent, but it is always the sign of a fine writer when comparisons and analogies can be made from a supposedly fantasy fictional tale. What matters here is that our new young lad has talent and that, as we all know, is refreshing and reassuring. Grady Harp, June 14