Review: A good space opera
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 7, 2013
Phoenix Earth: Season One is not your ordinary Science Fiction story. It is published by 7-11 press and is more of a TV series put into book form then a regular novel. The concept behind 7-11 press is to read their books in the time it takes to watch a movie. Phoenix Earth: Season One is divided up into 13 episodes with each episode being one chapter. Even when you look on 7-11′s website, it gives you a movie rating and an estimated reading time of 296 minutes. Seeing that Phoenix Earth was a novel that had a very original concept behind it, I was really excited to read it.Phoenix Earth is set in the year 2582 but the story begins in 2012. The earth started to go through a series of catastrophic events and NASA  formed a group of scientists whose mission was to preserve earth. The group was called the seeders, their mission failed but their technology was used to terraform Mars. Eventually Earth died and an airborne plague started to wipe out life on Mars. The colonists had no choice but to use a giant space ark to find a new home. They found a new planet named Malakar. The Malakarans were familiar with earthlings and let them make a home there.Over time the Earthling's seeder technology was used to save Malakar from the same fate that Earth suffered.  The two species lived in peace for hundreds of years and through interbreeding started a new race called Maluans. Pure blooded Malakarans decided that they no longer wanted earthlings or Maluans on Malakar so they decided to force them off the planet. Phoenix Earth is the story of the Maluans and Earthling's struggle to survive.Phoenix Earth is an epic space opera that reminded me of the movie serials that were popular in the 1930′s and 40′s.  There is a lot of action in this story, along with great characters and several exciting cliffhangers. The plot hits on a variety of subjects such as prejudice, politics and genocide. The story moves along like a freight train and doesn't give you a chance to catch your breath.I did enjoy this book but while the concept might have worked as a TV series, it didn't work as well as a novel. In the beginning so many characters were getting introduced, I felt like I needed a program to keep them all straight. Also it seemed like there was too much going on in the story. This book was called season one but there was enough material here that you could have easily divided it into three seasons and given a lot more detail. For instance I would have liked to learn more about life on Malakar. I also wanted more time spent on the colonists getting their civilization set up on earth and I wanted to know more about the planet eaters and the Ascendants.Despite my complaints about Phoenix Earth, I think this book is still worth your time. Reading the story does make you feel like your watching a movie.  There are a lot of great ideas here, I just wanted a little more explanation behind everything and more time to get to know the characters . There is currently a season 2 available and I would really like to see where they take the story.