Review: Not as good as expected
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 21, 2012
I received a free copy from Ioana Visan in exchange for an honest review. The novella itself is a quick read with only 100 pages, yet it does leave a couple of things to be desired.!!!Warning: might contain spoilers!!!I am aware that the book was translated into English, but I do think that it needs a lot of work on that end. Even to me as a non-native English speaker, a lot of things stood out.Besides that, the story left me confused. I have no real opinion of General Mackenzie or Dr. Deanna Nichols - am I the only one wondering if her name is a combination of Counselor Deanna Troy and Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek? well if not, I still find the name great. Sadly, a good name doesn't make a great character.A lot of things didn't make sense to me. Why did the General send Deanna off to the prison? How I understood it, she had this mobile lab thingy that did the entire work anyway, and which seemed to me as if it had been operated by whoever Deanna works with back at the base. Were they at a base? I didn't really get that either. Nor who waged war with who and what the virus did. I did understand that the vaccine crippled humanity's future survival by destroying the ability to invent things and think in complex patterns, which was actually a concept I really liked, though we didn't really see it in effect. A lot of things were left unexplained. Was the prison communicating? Or was the field around it preventing its communication like it did with the snow vehicle's communication? Was Tom the only survivor of the 'other' (losing) side? Why exactly was he thrown into jail? Because he did what soldiers do in war? They fight until there is no fight left? Was it personal matters with Mackenzie? If so how could that have any influence on his sentence? And how did Mackenzie cheat?What is contaminating the blood of the prisoners? And why do their days have 30 hours instead of 24? If they cannot see the outside from the inside due to lack of windows, how would they know if it was polar day? And what did they do during polar night?How can Deanna go from seeing Tom's bruised face to having her suspicions confirmed that he has broken ribs? Also, doesn't a "huge" subdural hematoma require surgical intervention? Aren't most "huge" subdural hematomas lethal? So how come Tom kept running the prison?Then the machines need 6 hours to charge, yet Deanna gets to work right away and wants to charge them later.It's a lot of things that came together and caused a lot of confusion (and frustration) on my end. Some of it is caused by the translation that often stayed very close to the original text it seems. (A problem every non-native speaker of whatever language is familiar with). But most of it is caused by loose ends that weren't woven together with the rest of the story. I don't know why Mackenzie sent Deanna to the prison. From a logical standpoint (a.) she's not vaccinated b.) she is a woman and there is simply no security) it doesn't make sense to send her there. The story only hints at Mackenzie's true motives at the end, yet those hints as well leave it way too open to make any sense. (Saving humanity by having kids with Tom? Or did I miss anything else)I guess I simply don't understand why Mackenzie didn't send armed men to the prison, have the prisoners sedated, and then bring them back to have Deanna and her team get the samples of tissue, then dispose of the prisoners.I wish I could give a more positive review, and if I compare it to the books I have read lately, and that I have rated with 3 stars, Human Instincts only gets 2.