Tagged: aliens
The Prophecy of Arcadia by M. H. Soars
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Would you sacrifice friendship and love in order to save your planet?
Being a teenager is tough, especially when you have to pretend to be something you’re not, and you’re in love with someone you shouldn’t. 115 years ago, a small planet called Arcadia was invaded by a vicious alien race and nearly destroyed. Cut off from their resources, the Arcadians turned to Earth for help. A group of Arcadian explorers discovered a Prophecy that claimed their salvation lay in the hands of two children from Earth. To ensure their safety, the Arcadian Council sent their most gifted youngsters to Earth to act as protectors. Samantha is one of them.
To succeed in her mission she must learn to control her Arcadian powers and keep her true identity from her best friend, and the girl she swore to protect, Alexia. But Samantha will soon realize that nothing is as it seems. Someone is trying to prevent the Prophecy from taking place and the prophecy boy hasn’t been found yet. There is also a new drug circulating at school that is turning students into freakishly strong menaces.
To make matters worse, distractions keep getting in her way. Such as her love/hate relationship with her “cousin” Matthew. Or her confused feelings toward popular and mysterious Julian. She wants nothing more than to be free to live her life. But the survival of Arcadia depends on her and her friends. Free will is not an option.
[Full disclosure: I was contacted by the author and received a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
The only real problem that I found throughout the whole of this book is that the points of view change just a little too much. Of course Alexia is the main character but a few of the other characters get page time as well. Sometimes it can get just a bit confusing, particularly in the beginning and you’re struggling to name them, let alone identify their voices. It gets better as the story goes on but it did take me quite a bit of time to keep everyone’s names, voices and backstories straight. If you don’t have the patience for that then The Prophecy of Arcadia is definitely not for you.
But if you have the patience to let a good story unfold, you’ll be amply rewarded. Although we readers are kept in the dark about Arcadia and the mysterious prophecy for a bit because Alexia is kept in the dark, we get to see hints of it and the prophecy throughout the story. They’re tantalizing and combined with the massive cliffhanger ending they certainly want to make you read more to find out more about M. H. Soar’s world. From what I can tell in this first book, her world-building is fantastic and when she goes into even more depth in the second book I think it will reveal just how much time and effort she put into creating Arcadia. We get hints of this depth in the first book but it’s just enough to whet your appetite and make you want to read the second one even more.
Once you do get a handle on the characters and the unique world M. H. Soars has created for them, you realize that they’re actually very distinct and three dimensional. Alexia is pretty much your typical high school girl who comes from an upper class background and has been neglected by her widower father. She finds refuge in the summers when she gets to visit her cousins (who are actually her alien bodyguards but she doesn’t know that) but this time she’s here for her last year in high school. And when she gets there all of her cousins are suddenly acting weird. One cousin is off at cheer camp which is completely contrary to her personality, Matthew and Samantha are acting really weirdly toward each other and it seems like bad things keep happening whenever she’s around. Although her cousins seem to know what’s going on, they cannot divulge the truth to poor Alexia, no matter the personal cost to themselves.
The characters are all three dimensional and that’s in part why they drive the action of the entire plot. This is a character-driven book so there’s more drama and a little less action than you might expect but it really does work. I was never really bored by the plot and although I could predict some of the major twists, there were some that completely blindsided me. The ending in particular was surprising and pretty terrifying for poor Alexia and her cousins/bodyguards. I can’t really talk much about the plot without spoiling some of the twists but suffice it to say that while you’ll see some coming, some will completely broadside you. They make sense when you look back at the plot but they’ll certainly surprise you at the time.
If you’re looking for some YA that’s a little different from what’s generally out there, I’d recommend The Prophecy of Arcadia. Although it deals with the whole prophecy vs. free will it does it in a very unique way, particularly when the actions of one character seem to throw a wrench into the whole works. And also: aliens! That’s not something as common and overdone as vampires, werewolves and fairies. If you can orient yourself in the beginning and pick out the voices of the different characters and how they feel about each other, you’re in for a good read.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
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Onyx by Jennifer L. Armentrout
(Cover picture courtesy of Jennifer L. Armentrout’s site.)
Being connected to Daemon Black sucks…
Thanks to his alien mojo, Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems.
Something worse than the Arum has come to town…
The Department of Defense are here. If they ever find out what Daemon can do and that we’re linked, I’m a goner. So is he. And there’s this new boy in school who’s got a secret of his own. He knows what’s happened to me and he can help, but to do so, I have to lie to Daemon and stay away from him. Like that’s possible. Against all common sense, I’m falling for Daemon. Hard.
But then everything changes…
I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?
No one is who they seem. And not everyone will survive the lies…
I have a confession to make. This series is pretty much guilty pleasure for me. It follows the pretty typical YA formula of girl meets hot jerk at school, falls in love, finds out he’s [x] supernatural being, etc. Normally I would hate this with a passion.
And yet I don’t.
Katy may not know her mind like some of my favourite heroines, but she doesn’t take crap from anyone. Not even Daemon Black. When he at first tries to woo her she rejects him over and over because she remembered how he treated her like garbage for three months. That sort of treatment just doesn’t go away overnight, no matter how many apologies are said. Yet when Daemon actually starts to prove he’s really not a jerk you start to see Katy at war with herself as she becomes more attracted to this new Daemon while remembering how badly he treated her.
The thing that separates Onyx and the rest of the Lux series from most YA is that it’s well-written. Dare I say that I literally laughed out loud because some parts were so funny? (The people around me have now become inured to my book-laughter so I didn’t get the usual ‘crazy’ stares.) At the same time, there were some very touching, serious scenes, especially toward the end of the novel.
I haven’t read a girl loves alien book yet so the premise is actually quite refreshing despite the overall formulaic approach. Jennifer L. Armentrout’s alien race (the Lux) are truly fascinating and how the government treats them is disturbing. And realistic. I like how the full scope of Daemon’s power is revealed in slow increments rather than being thrown at us all at once. The history of the Lux is also shown in greater detail in Onyx, especially concerning the Department of Defense’s relationship with them.
Is this the most unique book ever written? Of course not. However, Onyx is well-written, fast-paced, funny and touching at the same time. The characters seem like your typical YA characters at first, but then Katy and Daemon acquire so much more depth. They really grow throughout the books and I can’t wait to see what happens in Opal.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
The Scarlet Bastards by Sean Mac Úisdin
(Cover picture courtesy of The Island Scrivener.)
The Scarlet Bastards is the first in a series of memoirs from a retired jawan of the United Nations Off World Legion – a man by the name of Alexander Armstrong. He joined as a youth, fleeing the comfort and tedium of his teenage existence in 2098 – or as he characterized it, “in a fit of teenage pique” and was sent to the UN colony of Samsāra in orbit around Delta Pavonis, some twenty light years from Earth. A dumping ground for the downtrodden, the unwanted, and the forgotten, Samsāra with its nearly 100,000 Terrans and 250,000 Gliesiun refugees was a backwater hell – a technological and infrastructural wasteland where the tundra camel reined and a law-abiding and organized society was almost non-existent.
[Full disclosure: Sean Mac Úisdin sent me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
I’m not sure what it was, but The Scarlet Bastards never made the jump from ‘okay book’ to ‘great book’. This could be because it’s not something I would normally read or maybe it really is just good, but not great. There were some things I absolutely loved about Mac Úisdin’s book, but there were some other elements that I didn’t like.
I’ll start with the former. I absolutely loved the idea of a spoiled Canadian boy setting off on an adventure to what turns out to be the United Nations’ most ragtag army ever. The premise was excellent and overall it was executed well. There was plenty of humour, but also some poignant moments, which is actually quite a bit to pack into one novella that’s only 50 pages long. As for the characters, you have your gag characters like MacShaka, but also your somewhat serious characters like Alexander himself. Alexander as a narrator has an interesting enough voice and does mature quite quickly throughout the story, so I appreciate the effort Mac Úisdin has put into character development.
At first I really loved the world of Samsāra, but because of some of the slang words used by MacShaka and other characters who had been there for a while, I don’t feel I got everything that I should have. The descriptions of what the army was wearing and some of the dialogue was so dialect and slang ridden that I really had no idea what was going on sometimes. Yes, adding character quirks and local slang is important, but when it’s overused it gets both confusing and annoying. And while the dialogue in The Scarlet Bastards never reaches the annoying stage, it is rather confusing.
Maybe it was the fact that this book was never meant for someone like me, but I don’t think this is a series I’ll be continuing. However, if the blurb sounds interesting to you, go ahead and read it! It might just be a matter of personal preference on my part.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
Characters
Have you ever wondered why your perfect plans are shattered? Why a seemingly perfect romance ended? Why good luck strikes at strange times? Why life seems like a bunch of meaningless chaos?
There is a very simple answer to all of these questions. We were created by an ancient race of aliens and are nothing but characters in their stories, created to alleviate their boredom.
As soon as they are old enough to write, they are given a computer software program and a manual with only the most basic rules of their writing universe. In order to create a new character, they must collaborate with other aliens to make sure two human parents give birth to a child. This child will be under their control from the moment it is born until the moment it dies.
You are always subject to the whims of your creator. Everything you say, everything you do is controlled by them. Usually, the aliens have jotted down things they want to happen during your lifetime. But some aliens detest this and make random decisions as to where your life will go. This is where chaos comes from.
Our world is relatively new, but the aliens have become bored with it. The best writers among them have declared that the Earth is a cliché, boring universe. They decided they want to write in a new, more exciting world, so they took a special vote. It was this vote that decided how our world will end.
“Why don’t we let a black hole swallow their planet?”
“Nah, we’ve done that already.”
“What if the Earth spontaneously combusts?”
“That’s way too cliché!”
“Okay, why don’t we knock their planet out of orbit and send it crashing into the sun?”
“That’s a stupid idea.”
“Fine. How about we give all their world leaders bad cases of paranoia and see what happens?”
“Sure. Why not?”
And so, our world will not end with a bang, but with slow decay. Our increasingly paranoid world leaders will declare war on each other and humanity will slowly die out. But, since the aliens lost all interest in us, we have gained something we never had before: free will. It is now up to us to decide our fates—and the fate of our planet.
***
Just as some background on the story, I want to say that it was inspired by David Eagleman’s Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives and was originally written to be read aloud. So if you’re wondering why the language is so simplistic, there’s your answer.
Well, what did you think? If you have criticism, feel free to say it. I’m a book reviewer, after all; I wouldn’t be dishing out what I can’t take. And if you have praise, that’s fine too I suppose.
Anyway, merry Christmas to those of you that celebrate it! Now why are you still on the internet? Go spend time with your families!