Review: Damn good. Very nearly great.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 30, 2013
I had been waiting for The Beam to come out for a while. I had be teased by hints about this future world for months via the podcast the co-authors run.Needless to say I was damn excited to get my hands on this book. Upon finishing it I was blown away. It was a fantastic start.Then you are probably why I am not giving it five stars? I have given it 4.999999. Amazon wont let me give that, so I gave it four and you will just have to picture it as 4.9999999. Now you could argue that I should be rounding up. If I did that I would be ignoring the one doubt I had about this book. It was a big enough problem that it forced me to step away from it twice.So what was my issue? Answer: Chapter One.I have to be totally honest and say it was tough even finish the chapter.  I really didn't like Natasha (the PoV) character from the get go. I wasn't hooked by what was happening. There was also a lot of information about the world being poured out in that chapter, most of which was not disguised with crafty dialogue. I had to come back to it twice and start from the beginning. BUT (huge BUT) once I got past CH1 - I finished the rest in one sitting.Once I finished, I realised how fantastic a book it was I just read. I was totally blown away. It was exactly what I expected, if not more from this story.Looking back now a few days later, I am not even sure if the chapter was at fault. It might have just been my expectations. If that is the case then I suppose then it is unfair of me to rate it down because of that. Maybe it is. That being said, I still feel it is a fair review considering how I felt when I read the episode.If you are reading this review, please do not let my comments about the chapter turn you off. If you suffer a similar problem (which I very much doubt you will), please keep reading. Just KEEP READING! Don't stop. Don't even blink. Just keep reading! You will regret it if you don't.If you do stop... hell if you don't do your brain a favour and buy this book... guess what? You just gave up on potentially one of the best SciFi books this year.Don't be THAT guy/girl.Can't wait for the next episode.