I only got to page 99 before I had to relieve my feelings about this book.



The writing is terrible. Like wood, dead wood, but not interesting dead wood that can catch your eye with its fascinating shapes and textures. No, this is like a downed tree limb blocking a path. It's too wet and pulpy to be useful for firewood, but no where near breaking apart to nourish the ground. The dialogue is particularly bad - at one point I wondered if it was deliberate and intended to indicate that none of the characters were speaking their native language. But that would require a greater facility with the craft of writing fiction than the book otherwise demonstrates.



There's no emotional engagement. Even when the MarySue ^w protagonist is describing an incident in which he could have burned to death, it doesn't read at all like an actual thing that happened to him, and more like a point on an outline, "put in the part where I, I mean he, almost died to demonstrate my, I mean his, astounding mental control."



Oh, and up until page 99 there are also no women. Well, except for the throwaway paragraph about his screaming mother carrying him out of the fire. And, a nurse at the hospital (she's a "nice, older woman." Who says the author is weak on characterization?) Yes, he's on a military starship, but later we see a (very) few women with military positions, so it's not that the military is all male. I don't know, maybe this gets explained later, and yes, Tolkien, but Tolkien could actually write, so. . . Anyway, basically no women. Which, if you like that sort of thing, that's fine. But at this point it just seems like shoddy world-building.



I could go on, oh, how I could go on. Like the part where the protagonist, who has no training in magic, picks up a magic wand and can instantly use it. Or the part where, with no combat experience, he comes up with a strategy that astounds the space marines, a strategy that he'd learned from a video game.



Yeah, that probably tells you everything you need to know about this book.



It's free, so if value the craft of writing and you're looking for a good hate-read, or if you're a member of the author's family and you really want to support him in this writing thing, by all means pick up a Kindle copy.