Review: Good, could've been better
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2013
I received a free copy of I, The Provocateur in return for a non-reciprocal review. I really looked forward to reading this book, because I especially like stories that contain dark visions of humanity's future. While I can say the book was pretty good, unfortunately I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I hoped I would. The story takes place on the distant planet Remania, where a rich upper class enjoys the spoils provided by the slave labor of the lower classes, and a tyrannical government keeps all the workers in check. Into this world comes our first-person narrator, Adrian Temple. He is the Provocateur of the book's title. Working for a mysterious organization called the Galactic Order Department, his job is to travel to planets where the people are oppressed, and, to put it simply, stir up trouble for the local rulers.One of the book's problems lies in the fact that it is told in first person narration, which makes it hard for the author to flesh out the many characters that Temple has to deal with. There is little enough personality or distinctiveness for the main character, but there is none at all for anyone else. We are, of course, presented with an evil general, idealistic revolutionaries, and a love interest, among others, but none of them feel particularly real, although we feel we've seen them all before. The main bad guy is Alcazar and he comes across as an amalgam of every other sociopathic, egomaniacal bad guy in pretty much every other book where such a character is called for. It's not that he's not good at being evil and bloodthirsty, it's just that he's not very original at it. Plus he's only evil and bloodthirsty, which makes him not very interesting.The two main leaders of the revolutionary movement are called Salvador and Mother: while they are presented in a fairly original fashion which I won't reveal here, they merely come on stage, spout some generic polemics about freeing the enslaved citizens, and then disappear. Despite the very particular way that Salvador especially is introduced, as characters they are bland and easily forgotten. The hero's love interest is Reena and other than being beautiful, brave and heroic, as are all the other members of the Sisters of the Revolution, there was nothing distinctive or memorable about her. I wondered if the love interest was included in the story because the author felt it was obligatory, because there was little that was real about it, and at no point in time did I read anything which explained why these two would fall for each other.The story certainly moves along at a brisk pace; there is a good, unexpected plot twist, and what description there is of the planet and its governing powers is fairly well done. But, at around 35,000 words, there is little room for depth or backstory, or even many twists and turns in the storyline. I felt the author wanted to write something more than just a quickie action adventure, and maybe was trying to create a paean to liberation movements or to the empowerment of oppressed people. To fully succeed at this he would have had to fill out the story much more than he did. It was a noble effort at combining thoughtful commentary with an energetic story-line, even if it wasn't a perfect fit.