Amari By Steven Atwood Review

Amari is a science fiction, dystopian future, space adventure where the UN took over the running of the known universe after the GFC. They became power hungry tyrants that basically became thought police. They shipped people off to Mars to be “Re-educated” in the mines and others who escaped colonised Europa and beyond, creating places ripe for piracy and black market trading.

I think I was hoping for Firefly and was sorely disappointed.  I also thought I could read around the religious aspects of the book but couldn’t. The idea that all the religious people were calm and righteous and all those against religion were cruel, callous and fear their own death more than anything else really grated on me. Mainly because I read science fiction because it reflects the world quite well and I don’t see this as the way the world is. Simple being religious does not suddenly make you a perfect person as it seemed to do in this story.

The further you go in the book the more grammatical errors there are, which slows down the reading process dramatically.

If religion is the saviour of you world and you like science fiction with that flavour, this would be a great book for you but not me.

I received this book from Library Thing’s Members Giveaways. 2.5 stars out of 5

Review Smog – Baggage of Eternal Night

This is another of the Double Down series that delivers two novellas in one neat little package.

Smog by Lisa Morton was a really easy read that flowed beautifully.  Set in the 1960’s when everything was more innocent and the only thing to fear was the Russians. This little slice of Americana becomes the setting of a chemical induced lord of the suburban flies where the main character , the tomboy Joey, has to fight for survival and deal with her first period.  A fun take on the coming of age story.

Baggage of Eternal Night by Eric J. Guignard is less of an easy read but a far grittier story. This story touches at the hoarder and collector in all of us. Charlie’s friend, the recovering problem gambler Joey Third, gets more than he bid for  on the purchase of a suitcase from the hotel auctions. Feeling a bit like House of Leaves, this story uncovers the things in the shadows that we don’t like to think about to truly giver the reader the yips.

The two novellas are certainly worth the Sunday afternoon perusal.    

I received this book to review through Library Thing Early Reviewers