Review: Stiff First Person Narration
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 27, 2014
Plane Urth is set more than two hundred years into our future, where the surface dwelling humans and animals have been mutated into hideous versions of their previous selves, as a result of nuclear radiation and diseases released during a worldwide war. The few humans who survived the cataclysm by remaining underground, are being slowly exterminated now they have returned to the surface, by the mutant descendents of humans.The book was an entertaining read, though the premise was a common enough story, with a world populated by mutated creatures and post-humans. The protagonist was interesting, as was her back-story, which was revealed slowly throughout the book.The greatest negative of the book was that it was written in the first person, but there were very few contractions, in the narration and the dialogue. This made the entire thing feel stiff and unrealistic. I would encourage the writers to study everyday speech patterns, and then try to imitate that when writing in first person.Not a great deal happens in the novel, it is mostly a blow by blow account of two characters simply trying to survive. That of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but the ending was a tad unsatisfying, as it leads directly to the sequel.