Review: Worthwhile Prequel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 18, 2013
This short story is a prequel to "The Truth Beyond the Sky", which is itself the first volume in The Epic of Aravinda. I read the sample from "The Truth Beyond the Sky" and then noticed this prequel, which I figured would be worth downloading and reading as a setup for the novel. It is a helpful setup.While it's hard to tell much from a short story and a sample, all indications are good. The general feel of the work is that it is light on "hard" science and more reliant on a futuristic and "worlds of wonder" sort of feel. In this it is similar to Arthur C. Clarke, (say, "Childhood's End"), with its focus on how people and communities react to the extraordinary and extraterrestrial. That's just fine by me.I don't get the feeling that this will become a military or battle based space opera,  and it looks more like it's going to revolve around the importance of the little piece of the "thought ship" that gets sliced off and falls to earth in this short story.Characters are well defined and feel like they will develop over time. Writing is high middle quality. By that I mean that the story is smoothly and assuredly told, without purple prose or awkward overreaching. Dialogue works; descriptive passages are helpful without being excessive; there is some very creative space travel world building just in a few short pages. So, it all seems very solid and engaging, which is enough to get me to come back and try more.Please note that I found this book while browsing Amazon Kindle freebies. I have no connection at all to the author or the publisher of this book.