Brothers in Exile

Review of Brothers in Exile by Joe Vasicek

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: Deep in the Far Outworlds, a derelict space station holds the bones of a long-dead people—and a beautiful young woman locked in cryofreeze. When the star-wandering brothers Isaac and Aaron Deltana find the sleeping girl, they soon realize that they are her only hope for rescue. If they don't take her, then slavers certainly will.

With no way to revive her, they set a course for the New Pleiades in hopes of finding someone who can help. But a storm is brewing over that region of space. After a series of brutal civil wars, the Gaian Empire has turned its sights outward. A frontier war is on the verge of breaking out, and the brothers are about to be caught in the middle of it.
They both harbor a secret, though. Somewhere else in the Outworlds is another derelict station—one that they used to call home. That secret will either bind them together or draw them apart.

My Review:

I apologize in advance for not prioritizing correctly this week but it seems this next review is again for the Sci-Fi genre which is something I usually don’t do. That is, I try not repeat genres too much with the exception of Historical Fiction which is my favorite. I will try to do better next week.

Our novel, or novella, is the story of Aaron and Isaac, two brothers travelling out in space. Their home planet ran out of room for them as well as opportunities so they took off as space traders, which was something of a tradition among their people but only for the oldest son. However because of their situation, their father sent both of his sons out.

Things seem to be going fine until they reach a space station where almost everyone appears to be dead. Everyone except a girl covered in henna tattoos and frozen in a cryogenic state. They can’t figure out how to thaw her out so they take her with them, along with the other cargo they’ve collected, to prevent her from being discovered by slavers and made into a slave. Now they need to find someone who has the equipment to thaw her out and to do that they may need to search the galaxy.

Thus, begins Aaron and Isaac’s adventure. I won’t give any spoilers here, that’s not my style. But overall the story is good. The characters are interesting. The only that I didn’t like about this book were its use of the word “very,” which is meaningless, and because there were some other errors that probably could have been caught by hiring a good editor. Still, it is a free book, or at least it was last time I checked. If you like Sci-Fi, you might want to check it out. Not sure I like it enough to follow the series though.

 

Unfinished

Review of Unfinished Kendra C. Highley

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: In a world where genetically-engineered humans serve as slave labor to “real” humans, ten-year-old Quinn is an anomaly. Designed with superior intelligence and physical attributes, he lives and trains at Maren DeGaul’s lakeside mansion, being readied for some mysterious purpose as dictated by Precipice Corporation. Despite the comfortable surroundings, Quinn is frequently pushed to his limits by his human guardians, often learning lessons in pain and loneliness.
That all changes the day they introduce him to a new artificial, one who is both his equal and his soul-mate. But when Maren decides the new artificial is flawed and should be decommissioned, it’s up to Quinn to find a way to save his only friend.

My Review: 

For this week’s offering we delve into the world of Sci-Fi. Our main character is a young boy named Quinn. He is not a regular human but rather something called an artificial. I didn’t really fully understand what that meant because the context made it seem like it did not mean a robot but rather some kind of genetically-altered person. 

The people that he stays with then go on to create some other kind of genetically-altered person who is supposedly made just for him. His own personal Eve I guess except that her name is Lexa, a name Quinn has chosen for her. The book’s plot revolves around the adventures of Quinn and Alex as they attempt to break out of their environment—both literally and figuratively and attempt to find new lives that help them take full advantage of their potential.

My ranking on this one is simple. If I were using a five star rating, I would give this one a three out of five stars overall. 

The story is compelling but at the beginning it was hard to follow. Right after the chapter headings on most of the chapters it would read: Seven years ago. My first thought was, why not just wait till you get to that point in the story where it is the present and then put seven years later, just to indicate that seven years has passed? It makes more sense to me. But then the author kept doing that on almost every chapter and I was getting a little confused wondering if it was seven years before or after the last chapter. Finally there was a chapter in present day and if I remember correctly it had the heading “seven years later.” A bit strange but also convinces me that I was right and that the author should probably take out all those seven years ago headings.

The story itself was interesting though. It also became easier to follow after I started ignoring all of those headings. And now that we have travelled with the characters to the present point, the author asks us to take a journey with them to the next novel. It could be interesting but I am still not sure that I want to join them. For now, I have lots of other books to read though so I guess I best get cracking.

Contains:  mild swearing and elements of torture