Review: The execution falls way short of the intent
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 7, 2013
While I can well imagine that Scott extensively visualised his future Universe, sadly any deep, expansive visage did not make it to the novel and this is a tiresome read.Specifically, the main character, Kieran Hawker, is a callow, feckless - and essentially immoral - bore. And his three companions are thin in character and motive. In particular, I never quite understood why, or what, Jilly saw in Kieran sufficient to remain a loyal and dedicated friend.This is, I think, intended to be a story of personal redemption and good overcoming evil in the broader Human context, but the themes are muddled and the way the plot lurches along from point to point lacks cohesion. And despite us being shown the characters state of mind, I never felt that I really understood any of them.Then there are the numerous niggles. Forget the spelling and grammar errors, there is a space battle where it seems you can hear the explosions. And a character being shot with arrows when the assailants have rifles; OK they can shoot arrows I guess, but it is confusing for no reason.Worse than this, for some reason Scott introduces random differences for their own sake, rather than them being a logical consequence of the story arc such that they flesh out this future history. So we have many normal terms - door, floor, ship - but for no obvious reason the use of the 'astrom' for distances. This leads to sentences such as "He cried out, and her knife slipped another micente-astrom toward his throat." Certainly, if you are as talented as Tolkien then knock yourself out creating a whole new unit of measure. The rest of us should stick with feet inches and miles (or kms etc. if you want to go metric).Overall I could see what the intent was with "Escape" but the outcome falls way short of delivering.