Review: A nice surprise, a really good book for a bargain price
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 24, 2013
11/08 - I'm not exactly sure how I came across this prequel novella, maybe when I saw it it was free on Smashwords and that stood out. Even now, almost a year since I 'bought' this, I still consider myself pretty new to online/kindle books and am not really willing to pay more than $2 for a book that is nothing more than some 1s and 0s on a hard drive, a book you can't hold in your hands or display in your library, a book that, if your computer crashes, could be lost forever.It's depressing to think that humans could never be trusted with alien technology, and that even as we can see this trait in ourselves, we can't change it. Even on an alternate, mirror-Earth (which hasn't had all of the experiences with corrupted power in all its forms that we have) we cannot help but corrupt it. If there's a new technology we must use it for evil, even if it was originally meant for good, it's like we can't help ourselves. I can't see the attraction in living forever (even as a teenager I wasn't attracted to the vampire life), especially if you are forced to do something so abhorrent as to drain new-born babies of their life-force to rejuvenate yourself.From reading some of the other reviews it looks like most are from people who've already read Offutt's full length novel Slipstream and in reading this, have gone back to learn more about where the characters/plot originated from. I have a different point of view, in that, I'd never heard of Michael Offutt before reading this and so I'm reading The Insanity of Zero with fresh eyes. I had no expectations of what this was about (especially as I had actually forgotten the premise, it is so long since I got it from Smashwords). This was a tantalising taste of what Slipstream will be like and now I want the full meal. I look forward to the full books in the series.