Review: A hopeful story in a hopeless world
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 20, 2014
A free copy of this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.Remembrance is a prequel to The Perils of Forgotten Pain: Part 1 but can definitely be read as a stand alone.  I have not read Perils and did not feel like I was missing anything reading Remembrance.The story is set in an incredibly bleak future time on Earth.  Not only has society been almost decimated by war, radiation is causing high rates of cancer and the planet is being overgrown by forest at an alarming rate, but much of the population has left and the people remaining were rejected for the evacuation.  There is no hope for the human race to survive on Earth past a century.  Despite all this, Remembrance is ultimately a hopeful story - a story of small hopes found in individual people and their interactions/relationships.Ravon Silvius did an excellent job building the future-state world without awkward or lengthy exposition.  Details are organically included in dialog or scene descriptions.Aldric is one of the loneliest characters I have ever "met" in a book.  I felt so much empathy for him, especially when, despite everything he has experienced, he opens himself up to Daniel.  Daniel, was a bit more difficult for me to connect with as he seems to be using Aldric and is rather callous to him (albeit mostly unintentionally).  Secrets about the men are revealed throughout the story that explain their actions.A couple things took a bit of my enjoyment away. The author had the unfortunate propensity to refer to Daniel as "dark haired," as in the "dark-haired man."  Sometimes, this descriptor was used several times within a few paragraphs.  The repetition pulled me out of the story.  There was also an event where Daniel follows Aldric into the forest and the timeline seemed off.  Despite this, I really enjoyed the book and loved the very last line:  "He had lost everything, but at the end of the world, he had found so much more."Remembrance is a quick read - took me about two hours.  However, a lot is packed into the story.  It has piqued my interest in the Perils of Forgotten Pain books.