Review: Kickass characters who begin to reveal the mystery of the series. Stand alone novel.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 23, 2013
Essa takes place in a time fame of less than six months on a horrible, dictatorial planet. The groups of players in the story are the pre-teen Essa, mercenaries from off world called Hana, the planetary functionaries and  police, and the gods who control the planets.  The story told is what happens to Essa following severe trama – how she copes and fights back.  The book has continuous action, that advances the story – not just busywork action.  Essa becomes a bad ass girl – but she is still a little girl. What do you do with that dangerous girl? Keep reading! My summary is a weak little shadow of the story, which is really great.The book introduces two of the underlying mysteries of the series – the Hana and the gods.  Essa is a stand alone novel – no cliff hangers.  Just hints of new directions to be explored.Mr. Bird creates organic growth for his characters, revealed through situation relevant dialogue and reactions. There were no long internal diatribes or philosophizing, which is a plus for the pace and flow of the story. This is not a children's story.  There are hard plots and circumstances dealt with by his characters.The characters are revealed through the real time progress of the plot.  There is not a lot of foreshadowing of good guy/bad guy, although some definitely end up on one camp, many are far more ambiguous.The cover art – which I like – made me think the book might be a teenager book and have lots of snarky teenage dialogue. That is not the case.  Although I like the art, I think the prejudices of some older readers (like me) might cause them to skip over the description of the book because it looks juvenile to us, which is too bad. I'm not into marketing.  I don't have a solution to offer for that – maybe alternative covers?  Is that allowed?I don't know that my review really communicates how much I  enjoyed the book and also the next book in the series, Causality.I understand that Mr. Bird does not have proof readers and editors.  He has done an amazingly perfect and professional job in that regard.  Kudos to him.