Review: A Spectacular Surprise!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 26, 2011
I followed here from a link on the Instapundit site and decided it was worth a shot at $2.99. What I found, for that crazy-low price was a book that was easily worth 5 times that. For his first book, Ric Locke has created a set of characters that feel very real, unique and develop nicely over the 2+ year time span of the book. I started reading it on the plane and couldn't stop, stealing time away whenever I could to read it. Evoking the feel of Robert A. Heinlein, Locke creates a rich set of worlds and alien cultures, and an interesting over-arcing theme of people who accepted a structured life to get free of something they disliked, but then eventually broke with that structured life to vault themselves to new heights. In the dystopian near-future Earth Locke creates, it's easy to see why someone like Peters would join the Navy to escape. But that serves only as a springboard to his real potential. It's a theme that recurs for many of the characters in the book.Well worth the asking price, and Ric Locke has earned himself a place on my 'must-read' list. Now he just needs to write another book!