Review: Short, But Well Written Traditional SF
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 5, 2012
I picked this up when it was offered as a free Kindle download. The current price is $2.99. I only mention that because His Name In Lights is a relatively short novella (35 pages). At that price my standards might have been a little higher.As it is though, I really enjoyed His Name In Lights. It's a traditional, maybe even slightly old fashioned hard science fiction story with a number of familiar elements to it including space exploration and what makes a person human.This isn't cutting edge science fiction, but it is solid craftsman like storytelling that takes familiar tropes and creates an entertaining story from them.It's a one sitting read at that length but it definitely left me wanting to know more about these characters and this universe. It could easily be expanded to around 70 pages without stretching the existing plot much at all. In it's current form a couple of sections seem a little bit rushed.I enjoyed it enough to look up a couple of Patty Jansen's longer works and add them to my to-read list. Really the only thing stopping me from recommending everyone buy this is the price.However those of you who have Amazon Prime can get it from the lending library for free.