S.L. Dunn

Between life and work, the wording in places and the setup of this book it took me longer to finish than it should have. Overall, a unique story with very detailed characters. There were some places in the story where I felt bored. The fight scenes were a little dragged out or the explanation of powers and abilities were repetitive. Some of the wording in places had me wondering, why? It felt like I was stopping to reread some of these phrases because they just made no sense where they were. It really threw me off and I had to put the book down a couple of times because of this.
All that being said I was ANGRY when this book ended (minor spoiler). I waited all book for one thing to happen, then it hits and all of a sudden "till next time". I'm hooked for the next one that's for sure and the ending made that happen! I'm fond of the main characters and it seems like a good amount of detail, time and thought went in to each one. The only other thing to note would be that I did have to look up some of the words at the beginning of the book. They all pertained to the science that is referenced in the book.
I honestly think that if you can be patient with this book and want a unique story, that you'll be happy with this. Stick it out and endure some of the rough spots and you'll be hooked for the next one!… (mere)

Vengelis did not hesitate. The moment Gravitas's body slipped unintentionally forward, Vengelis raised a left fist, sending it barrelling into Gravitas's chin. Gravitas's head rocked back from the blow, and as it came forward again, stunned and discombolulated, Vengelis's right fist came up and caught Gravitas on the cheek. He could feel the bone break against his knuckles.

To start with I was enjoying the scenes set on the planet of Anthem concerning the political infighting of human scientists as their behaviour seemed more realistic, but once the Primus Emperor and his two warriors arrived on Earth, it all got a bit silly. I like science fiction to be plausible enough to allow me to suspend my disbelief, but unfortunately this book kept dragging my disbelief down and stomping it into the ground so that I couldn't ignore the implausibilities in the plot.

The plot consists of far-fetched coincidence after far-fetched coincidence, The Primus warriors just happen to arrive on earth as Kirsten finds out about the Vatruvian mice, and just happen to decide to gatecrash the one scientific conference in the whole world where Vatruvian cells are being discussed, which just happens to be in the one city on earth where the Vatruvian cells were created, and the research scientist giving the presentation just happens to be the girlfriend of an exiled Primus who is living on earth incognito, who just happens to be the son of the Primus scientist who developed the Felix cell (the Primus version of the Vatruvian cell). I was expecting to discover that some of these coincidences were not coincidences after all, and that Pral Nerol who put Professor Vatruvius on the path of developing the Vaetruvian cells when he visited Earth a few years earlier, but it seems not. However the story is not complete by the time the book ends and, so maybe some of these coincidences will be cleared up in the sequel.

Other unlikely things: The US government ordering the evacuation of all major cities after Chicago is attacked. Knowing how much chaos there was when New Orleans was evacuated after Hurricane Katrina, I do not think this would happen. Also, the planet of Anthem being populated by powerful warriors who are impervious to all weapons, crashing through from one side of a skyscraper to another, and falling thousands of feet to the ground, but who can kill each other in fist fights. How could this possibly be due to genetic traits as Vengelis claims? Superheroes are one thing, but this is science fiction and the Primus species seems to have started off very similar to homo sapiens, before the Sejero genetic traits changed them into superhuman wariors. Towards the end of the book, I found myself skim-reading the fight scenes between the Primus warriors as I have never been a huge fan of fight scenes and these were boringly repetitive. Primus are able to take so much physical punishment that I couldn't believe Vengelis being surprised that his opponent was able to fight on after getting a broken cheekbone. The main characters were around 20 or 21 and both Vengelis Epsilon and Kirsten Jordan seemed staggeringly immature at times, so I checked to see if this is a YA book, but it doesn't seem to be.… (mere)