Review: Mixed feelings
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 15, 2012
Ok, so I will start at the beginning, the beginning being the presentation...If it wasn't for the 99c price I would have passed this one on. I know we are raised to not judge a book by its cover but seeing as this is an independent novel and on Amazon, it is a sad fact that no matter what, seeing as we are spoilt for choice, we MUST judge books by their covers or we will be forever put off of the independents or maybe even reading all together.Why did I take a second look? Well that has to do with why I was in the general area altogether. I was a Beta reader for "Atopia Chronicles" by Matthew Mather and also I am a very avid fan of Hugh Howey, who's "Silo" Series helped my find my favourite author and book of all the books and authors I have ever read, "The Hurricane", but that aside, I should get back to the point.After having read those awesome and basically life changing (Well, as far as what I read goes anyway) series I have found (And this is the life changing part) a new look on independent authors, I knew that there really is a select few of them that can and do write on par, if not better than published authors. The side effect is the fact that "Wool" is more about the characters than the Sci-Fi and "Atopia" is more hard-core, gritty Sci-Fi. I wanted something in between for a light read when I took breaks from studying programming.So there I was, in the Sci-Fi section of my local Amazon page browsing through the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section and after going through a ton of different books I came across this story. I read the description and it peeked my interest but I was very iffy, yeah, it was only 99c but that 99c could have gone to another story so I moved on for more reasons than one, firstly, the Author's Amazon name, (I do know now the reason behind it but at the time I didn't so yeah...) next was the cover, it was (it's slowly changing with each of these books) my opinion that if the author can't put just a little more effort into the cover when it is the difference between someone passing or taking a second look, then how much effort could they have put into the story in betweenDon't get me wrong, the artist did a decent enough job, much better than I ever could and I am not dogging on that... yeah, it looks a little amateurish but meh, as I said, much better than I ever could (It would have looked better if it was digitally coloured and not, what it seems and coloured in with felt-tip pens, that's what makes it look bad, the actual drawing is pretty decent and I give a kudos to the artist for the actual skill)My problem with the cover is the title and author line are, to be blunt, crap, the placement and typography chosen made the whole thing look awful and like it was put together at the very last moment which actually hurts the cover artist work more than the felt-tip pens.So yes, that ruined my first look at the book... I know, it seems like a lot of text so far and I haven't even gotten into the book yet...So after another round of the Sci-Fi "Customer Also" game I came back to "Admiral Who?" and decided to check the "Look Inside" feature. And that was why I gave the book a second chance, because I couldn't find anything else that gained my interest and it was the "Look Inside" that made me give it a full chance at being read.Now onto the review of the story,To put it bluntly, I spent most of reading this book being angry and fed up and wanting "Prince-Cadet/Admiral Jason Motagne Vekna" to be real so I could hunt him down and punch him in the face repeatedly with a sledge hammer, I kept wondering when he was going to stop being either paranoid or being a coward, I wanted him to snap, to smarten up and take charge more often (and not just when it meant he could possibly be killed) and that's when I realised, Mr. (Joshua) Wachter had done something that not a lot of other authors recently (Not counting Hugh and Matthew anyway) have been able to do, I care about our little admiral, I care deeply enough that I want him to survive, I want him to man up and to do what is needed to be less than an annoying little brat playing leader, I want him to be the hero he should be and stop being stepped on all the time by people who want him to fail. I keep reading because I want to make sure he ends up with the girl and the title he deserves, to get past his cursed family name.I want all the crew to win, even the annoying first officer, I want the happy ending (I would be ok with a great bad ending as well, probably would prefer it in the long run but I doubt that highly knowing who Mr. Wachter is ultimately penning this tale for, well at least for who he is reading it to...) and this is a rear trait in my mind because usually the main cast is the focus and everyone else are no more than cardboard cut-outs  and are just there for filler, well not in this story... this story makes everyone seem real, almost as if the author has had this story in his mind for a very long time and he keeps creating new people with full back stories and motivation and lives and feelings, sure, there is some cardboard characters but they are never in it for more than a few lines and that is forgivable, if the author went into great detail about EVERY single person the book would become stale quickly.So for this and for making me want to wait for the sequel, which thankfully I had to wait 2 days for... mainly because I HAD to know what was going to happen next, I couldn't not think of this book after reading it.So for the depth of characters, the engaging story, the middle ground between hard-core Sci-Fi and just a normal story that just so happens to be set in the future, the way the author spins his story I give this book 5 stars. 5 very well deserved stars.Now all that is needed is a redo of some of the grammar, as it seems it was written in third person and then changed during the end game for its couple of slips between first person to third when the story is being told by the main character (seeing as when the story is not being told by the main it is always in third) and the few spelling mistakes here and there and misused words, this story could possibly reach the venerable spaces that Mr. Howey and Mr. Mather have achieved (I still hold that because Game of Thrones is Fantasy and NOT in any way conceivable to be Sci-Fi, it's position in the list is irrelevant)If you got this far, thanks for reading, if you think I am dick for dogging on the cover, then please let me apologise, I am just reviewing this honestly.P.s. I found that a good soundtrack to reading this and the next book is "Mumford & Sons" album "Sigh No More" a few of the songs, if you're lucky to have the album (Full with both studio and Live disks) on repeat and happen to have the perfect songs come on at the right time will enhance reading this story greatly.P.p.s. My review of the second book will come soon as I am sadly mostly though it at this time... which sucks because it just came out and if there is a third, I will have to wait a while to re-enter the Spineward sectors... But more about that in the next review!