Review: When Chris gets away from his "commonwealth" he can write decent tales
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 24, 2014
I've found that I'm not a huge fan of Christopher Nuttall.  His stories tend to be plot and action heavy, but at the same time skimp on character development.  This story by its nature ran against that pattern.  Here Christopher has a number of high school students on the dying Earth of his Empire Corps series selected to go on a journey to a colony world as a form of vocational field trip.  The story concentrates on three of the children selected.Naturally in a Christopher Nuttall story, the tale starts out with more than a few scenes designed to condemn the present day situation in the 21st century on Earth, by taking it ad absurdum  (to the absurd).  The school is apparently run by the bullies and the students lack any knowledge about themselves of what they know or don't know.  But this also gives Chris a rich canvas upon which to paint his tale.  The very fact that his students know nothing allows him to show them growing up as people and learning about real life.This is one of the better tales Christopher has written and is a complete departure from the series in a way.  It is in the same universe as the other tales, but stands alone.Surprisingly I'd say this one is worth the read, if you can mentally check out on some of the over the top arguments Christopher loves sneaking into his tales.