Tribulations [Mass Market Paperback]

You know, I'm willing to overlook names like Billy and Linda Lou if the story is good, and draws me in (and it'd have to be damn good to make me feel like I'm not reading about some hicks in outer space). Seriously though, that's a personal thing.. I enjoy good character names, and these just seemed as if the author just didn't give a damn about his characters - which becomes even more evident in his story.

If this story had been recited to me, orally, at bedtime, in increments, by my grandfather, I would have loved it. It moved at a quick pace, and was written in "everyday speak" sort of language. But that doesn't translate to the page well. There needs to be detail, and description. An author should not write about how there is a language barrier between an alien race and the crew aboard a spaceship and then, a few lines later, solve that issue by saying Billy made some translation devices for everyone and they all could understand.

It's not that easy!

There needs to be some depth to the story. There needs to be actual time passing, don't tell me "...a few weeks later", write about something that happened to make me understand that time is, indeed, passing. Did he face any difficulties? I mean, creating a translation device, that seems pretty interesting - tell me more about it.

Furthermore, don't create situations that you have an easy answer to. I felt like every obstacle facing Linda and Billy was easily solved, way too easily solved, with so little actual writing space between the problem and the answer that I barely had time to wrap my mind around the issue before it had been solved.

Also - never a good idea to start a book with the morning after a wedding night. That felt uncomfortable and weird.

I really was psyched up about this book - I wanted to enjoy a good science fiction book, and when I saw that TOR had mailed this one to me I jumped around the house and talked to everyone about it. But man, I am so. damn. disappointed. by this story.

AArggh! gave up eight pages in. The baby was "Accidently given a shot of dna from a mummy in a sarcophagus?" Was the doctor walking around with it in his hand? Can't decide which GALAXY to travel to? Is ours too dull? Then I was horrified to discover the neighboring galaxies are only 4 light years away! Are they pancaked against ours? At this rate, I was expecting his allusion to the "dwarve galaxy" to be smaller than our solar system. How does a book like this get published? How does it get by an editor, any editor! with a ninth grade education who can point out to Ken that he might read some basic cosmic educational material. It would at least make the book bearable. I seriously wonder who pays the extravagant cost of publishing without at least covering the simple basics. I expect better from any publisher. I tried to give it zero stars, but it would not let me.

Like the previous review, I picked this book up at Wal-Mart, looking for something to read. The back cover had an interesting hook so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not going to repeat the points covered by the previous reviewer, I'll just add my own.

There's no scale to the timeline at all. No where does the author cover truly how much time is covered, and in fact contradicts his own timeline at several points. Example, at one point the Nubian Queen remembers the hero's prediction of the upcoming meteor strike and states that it's going to happen in a few months, implying that there are only 3-4 months left. Yet the hero has time to make week long trips, build balloons and evacuate thousands of people and build a nuclear reactor and a shuttle. And the Nubian queen is killed, the new king has time to take over the kingdom, make a multiweek long journey and make peace with the other kingdom his has been at war at for years (centuries?).

There's also no transitions between settings. At one point, the hero and his wife are disturbed by dreams they have been having. The hero comments to his wife that he's going to light a fire under the people building the shuttle and in the very next sentence, he's addressing the shuttle builders leader about their progress. Did the other person hear what the hero had just said? Was he in the bedroom waiting for them to wake up?

Then there's the whole concept of the meteor strike. As a rough estimate, I'd say that the events of the book take place over a time period of a few years. Yet this meteor is travelling through the solar system which is similar to ours. When the hero and his ship first arrive, the meteor is a few days or weeks away from passing by the planet. Yet it is apparently able to travel so fast that it continues it's inbound track, then outbound to outside the solar system, and return back to hit the planet within that time frame. And it's travel time is shortened by several months due to being affected by a nearby massive star going supernova and forming a black hole which altered the meteors course. Yet the planet was unaffected the supernova?

Finally, the writing style is over simplistic and repetitive. A character will think one thing, then repeat it aloud in the next sentence. The hero seems to be the only one who can think of the actions to take, and his explanations are overly simplistic and not at all detailed. In the beginning of the book, his method of getting them out of the FTL travel works, but ruins the ship because another character makes a last minute addition which he doesn't confess to until it's too late. It results in the ship being badly damaged. But, with all the material and such they mine later, they end up losing the ship because it seems they don't actually do any repairs or build the power plants immediately that they could have used to protect the ship.

I would only recommend this book to a 2nd or 3rd grade child. Or to high school or college level students as a perfect example of how NOT to write a compelling book. I've been reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy books for over 30 years and enjoy authors that take their time to develop the characters and story. This book was painful to read I struggled to get through it without cringing every other word.