Review: Exciting new series!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 25, 2013
Buried Hope is a sci-fi novella built around a dystopian society called Spes. In a very restricted environment, the people are heavily governed by the "Eye" and the 'peacekeeping' Eye's Guard, where they only have one freedom: their thoughts. The hopes and dreams of the people of Spes revolves around returning to the World Above, but to them the world is dead, and toxic to anyone but the blood of the Number, a single bloodline of those said to be immune to the dangers of the outside world. It's up to the Numbers to survey the world above, and bring word to the people when it is finally safe to emerge, but it's not that simple.Now this plot revolves around several main characters (surprising for a book this size) who each have their own unique roles in the story, including Number Thirty-Two. I found that the characters were very well-thought-out & refreshing. They each had their own perspective on the situation, and one thing I've found about a lot of these characters is that when you think you know their place... their exact role in the story down to the fact that you can practically guess the conclusion, you're wrong. This is the first book in the series and at this point I can't guess where any of the characters will end up. That's a plus for me, because it kept the story interesting.So you've got an pretty good plot and unique characters. Now onto the prose. Selman has a very descriptive writing style that I also find distinctive from other authors. I notice the book goes into a lot of detail, but only about informative things. Rather than go into extra detail to describe say a specific setting, the book takes the time to go further into the plot with background information, or describing the way things run in Spes, or a certain character's history. For such a small book, you get a LOT of information, and still end up with a lot of good questions. The vocabulary is advanced. Suitable for adult readers, but not so overdone as to distract YA readers either, so that's a plus as well.Overall, after reading this short story, I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel. It's a good story with better characters, and it's well written. I feel that if you are into general sci-fi and/or dystopian fiction, then this book won't disappoint. I thoroughly enjoyed it and overall I give I'd a 4.5/5