Review: 4-star novel until the ending
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 15, 2013
I almost consider the time I spent reading a novel a waste after a bad ending. Especially a mystery. I don't care who's doing the writing: Agatha Christie, Stephen King or Adam Howell. A bad ending makes me think less of the whole endeavor.And I didn't want to do so. There are so few well-devised and structured straight science fiction novels nowadays, especially by indie writers. And ReEarth had such potential as both sci-fi and a murder mystery. This story had the feel of Alfred Bester-meets-Arnaldur Indridason, and I was seriously enjoying it until the last few chapters. Now I don't care if a mystery's solution is transparent, and after a certain point this one was, as long as it is handled well. I often read series detective fiction more for the character interaction than the murder. I've had enough reader-hating twists from reading Agatha Christie's books. This wasn't necessarily one of those annoying cheats, but this ending pretty much ruined the novel (at least for me) and pretty much ruined the chance of this being a proper series.I received a copy of this book from BookRooster to review. However, it may not have been the updated version now touted in the listing. There were a few punctuation errors, but there were a lot of wording errors, in which homonyms were mistakenly used (i.e. "boarders" for "borders"). Nothing too difficult to overlook while reading, but indicating the book could've used one last fresh set of eyes to give it a read.