TitaniumTi
Well-Known Member
Infinity Born by Douglas E Richards
Infinity Born starts with a strong hook. In fact, it starts with several strong hooks. A president has taken refuge in a bunker; a young woman is faced with a moral dilemma; a scientific team is one the brink of a breakthrough. But there was too much telling and too little showing to retain my interest.
I couldn't relate to most of the brilliant, physically gifted characters, and the one character who appealed to me was "killed off" early in the book. As a result, I didn't care about the survival of the protagonists, and the suspense left me cold. By the 50% mark, I had categorised the book as a thriller masquerading as science fiction, and was ready to quit. Then it surprised me by ramping up the science fiction and introducing plot elements that I didn't expect.
This didn't last. The second half of the book mixed science fiction exposition with drama in a story that I found, once again, entirely too predictable.
The author's notes at the end interested me more than any other part of the story. The author's quoted references, include newspaper articles, sent me on a search for original sources. There is a particle of science, it seems, behind some ideas I had dismissed as handwavium, although it's a light-wave leap from reality to fiction.
Infinity Born starts with a strong hook. In fact, it starts with several strong hooks. A president has taken refuge in a bunker; a young woman is faced with a moral dilemma; a scientific team is one the brink of a breakthrough. But there was too much telling and too little showing to retain my interest.
I couldn't relate to most of the brilliant, physically gifted characters, and the one character who appealed to me was "killed off" early in the book. As a result, I didn't care about the survival of the protagonists, and the suspense left me cold. By the 50% mark, I had categorised the book as a thriller masquerading as science fiction, and was ready to quit. Then it surprised me by ramping up the science fiction and introducing plot elements that I didn't expect.
This didn't last. The second half of the book mixed science fiction exposition with drama in a story that I found, once again, entirely too predictable.
The author's notes at the end interested me more than any other part of the story. The author's quoted references, include newspaper articles, sent me on a search for original sources. There is a particle of science, it seems, behind some ideas I had dismissed as handwavium, although it's a light-wave leap from reality to fiction.
