The last thing Ben Shepherd wanted was another war. But sometimes the universe won’t take no for an answer.
His body and spirit mangled by a lifetime of combat, Shepherd has retreated to the desolate desert of New Mexico to heal his wounds and dodge his demons. All he wants now is peace and quiet.
Both are shattered one starry night when an alien ship crashes nearby. Out of the ship crawls the last, dying member of a conquered civilization. It’s been shot down by an extraterrestrial enemy, the vanguard of a ravenous force hunting for a new homeland. With its last gasp, the wounded alien injects Shepherd with a high-tech serum that gives him near superhuman powers.
Now, with a new body but a soul as fractured as ever, Shepherd becomes the reluctant leader of the human resistance against the coming invasion. With enemies on all sides, the man who couldn’t bear the guilt of seeing one more friend die in battle now finds himself charged with protecting the entire planet.
***** *** *******
From my very first look at this, I was determined to get hold of it, as were a number of other like-minded readers whom I know. It sounds great, a worn-out soldier receiving a dose of something from a dying alien which will help him to lead the human race in a desperate defence of our beautiful blue planet from another more advanced alien species bent on taking it for themselves. In this book, which is obviously the beginning of a planned series, we’re promised a fast-paced and action-filled caper which blasts us across Earth and Earth-space and that's what we get, pure and simple, a fun military flavoured sci-fi adventure that makes up with pure entertainment for what it lacks in detail and description.
Admittedly alien invasion is in no way a new idea but it just continues to work so well. I certainly enjoy it and I'll wager that it'll remain a solid and popular sci-fi trope forever. The idea has been done and done well by so many authors [probably most have had a crack at it at some stage] in the genre, but it will never fail to grab the imagination of those who like to ponder the likelihood of extraterrestrial beings and wonder what form those beings might take. Whether or not said lifeforms will be benevolent or malevolent is an interesting thing to ponder and in this first offering from Victor Godinez we are introduced to one of each type. Our leading character, a tired and injured Navy SEAL, is injected with a high-tech serum which transforms him into a "super soldier" with superhuman abilities and with these he leads the battle against the invading aliens. As well as Ben's powers, humanity is given an incredibly vast quantity of technical data which enable the production of machines, gadgets and weapons that amount to a technological leap of hundreds of years. This knowledge is required if we're to have any hope of holding off the invaders. The tech and weaponry is probably the best aspect of this story and lovers of such things will enjoy the explosions. The descriptions for this sort of stuff were fine, possibly even a tad too much, but that is obviously the author's thing and that's fine by me, and lovers of cool shit and shoot-'em-up romps will get right into this. The plot is simple but certainly adequate and contains enough intrigue which has an enticing little twist right at the end which (I think) sets up where the next episode of the story may be headed.
It's well written, especially the action scenes, and I found it to be an easy and swift read with the pages bolting past at a rate like I've not experienced for some time. While this is definitely not a bad thing, I cannot help but suggest that Godinez may have overlooked some details, which would've greatly enhanced his story for me, for the sake of fitting the epic action into his word count. Probably the final third of the book is a big final battle and I admit to beginning to yawn just a little toward the end. Having said that, the quality of the action and it's writing kept me hooked no worries at all. But, to shift back to the negative again, I was waiting and waiting for some decent detail about the alien species which (unless I missed it) never materialized. At the beginning of the book, we have a basic description of both alien species but this isn't built upon to any real degree and this was disappointing especially since we see so much of the invading aliens during the big battles. We don't get "inside the heads" of any of the ET's. Sure, we learn a little of the background of why the aliens have set their sights on us from information furnished from the massive information transfer, but it's not enough for my liking. Hopefully, book two will fill in some of these gaps.
From a pure entertainment standpoint, The First Protectors is hard to fault, to be honest, and I devoured it easily. I just wish that the information level had been lifted slightly above the point of where it currently sits, that is I wanted a bit more detail of the greater story picture rather than being focused on us down here a so much. But for the kind of entertainment that it is, and what the author no doubt was trying to achieve, it's pretty good.
It would've probably have been a 5 out of 5 book for me had I been disappointed with the lack of detail about the aliens, etc. As it sits, it's not too bad at all and I will be watching for Godinez with great interest. He's yet another fresh new name to appear in the science fiction field in recent years and hopefully destined for great things. I just hope that he doesn't rush into the next book but rather takes the time to give us a little more "flesh and blood", even if it's at the expense of a few technical details or deafening explosions.
3/5 for concept
4/5 for delivery
5/5 for entertainment
= 4 out of 5
Buy the ebook HERE (Amazon)
Buy the paper book HERE (Book Depository)
His body and spirit mangled by a lifetime of combat, Shepherd has retreated to the desolate desert of New Mexico to heal his wounds and dodge his demons. All he wants now is peace and quiet.
Both are shattered one starry night when an alien ship crashes nearby. Out of the ship crawls the last, dying member of a conquered civilization. It’s been shot down by an extraterrestrial enemy, the vanguard of a ravenous force hunting for a new homeland. With its last gasp, the wounded alien injects Shepherd with a high-tech serum that gives him near superhuman powers.
Now, with a new body but a soul as fractured as ever, Shepherd becomes the reluctant leader of the human resistance against the coming invasion. With enemies on all sides, the man who couldn’t bear the guilt of seeing one more friend die in battle now finds himself charged with protecting the entire planet.
***** *** *******
From my very first look at this, I was determined to get hold of it, as were a number of other like-minded readers whom I know. It sounds great, a worn-out soldier receiving a dose of something from a dying alien which will help him to lead the human race in a desperate defence of our beautiful blue planet from another more advanced alien species bent on taking it for themselves. In this book, which is obviously the beginning of a planned series, we’re promised a fast-paced and action-filled caper which blasts us across Earth and Earth-space and that's what we get, pure and simple, a fun military flavoured sci-fi adventure that makes up with pure entertainment for what it lacks in detail and description.
Admittedly alien invasion is in no way a new idea but it just continues to work so well. I certainly enjoy it and I'll wager that it'll remain a solid and popular sci-fi trope forever. The idea has been done and done well by so many authors [probably most have had a crack at it at some stage] in the genre, but it will never fail to grab the imagination of those who like to ponder the likelihood of extraterrestrial beings and wonder what form those beings might take. Whether or not said lifeforms will be benevolent or malevolent is an interesting thing to ponder and in this first offering from Victor Godinez we are introduced to one of each type. Our leading character, a tired and injured Navy SEAL, is injected with a high-tech serum which transforms him into a "super soldier" with superhuman abilities and with these he leads the battle against the invading aliens. As well as Ben's powers, humanity is given an incredibly vast quantity of technical data which enable the production of machines, gadgets and weapons that amount to a technological leap of hundreds of years. This knowledge is required if we're to have any hope of holding off the invaders. The tech and weaponry is probably the best aspect of this story and lovers of such things will enjoy the explosions. The descriptions for this sort of stuff were fine, possibly even a tad too much, but that is obviously the author's thing and that's fine by me, and lovers of cool shit and shoot-'em-up romps will get right into this. The plot is simple but certainly adequate and contains enough intrigue which has an enticing little twist right at the end which (I think) sets up where the next episode of the story may be headed.
It's well written, especially the action scenes, and I found it to be an easy and swift read with the pages bolting past at a rate like I've not experienced for some time. While this is definitely not a bad thing, I cannot help but suggest that Godinez may have overlooked some details, which would've greatly enhanced his story for me, for the sake of fitting the epic action into his word count. Probably the final third of the book is a big final battle and I admit to beginning to yawn just a little toward the end. Having said that, the quality of the action and it's writing kept me hooked no worries at all. But, to shift back to the negative again, I was waiting and waiting for some decent detail about the alien species which (unless I missed it) never materialized. At the beginning of the book, we have a basic description of both alien species but this isn't built upon to any real degree and this was disappointing especially since we see so much of the invading aliens during the big battles. We don't get "inside the heads" of any of the ET's. Sure, we learn a little of the background of why the aliens have set their sights on us from information furnished from the massive information transfer, but it's not enough for my liking. Hopefully, book two will fill in some of these gaps.
From a pure entertainment standpoint, The First Protectors is hard to fault, to be honest, and I devoured it easily. I just wish that the information level had been lifted slightly above the point of where it currently sits, that is I wanted a bit more detail of the greater story picture rather than being focused on us down here a so much. But for the kind of entertainment that it is, and what the author no doubt was trying to achieve, it's pretty good.
It would've probably have been a 5 out of 5 book for me had I been disappointed with the lack of detail about the aliens, etc. As it sits, it's not too bad at all and I will be watching for Godinez with great interest. He's yet another fresh new name to appear in the science fiction field in recent years and hopefully destined for great things. I just hope that he doesn't rush into the next book but rather takes the time to give us a little more "flesh and blood", even if it's at the expense of a few technical details or deafening explosions.
3/5 for concept
4/5 for delivery
5/5 for entertainment
= 4 out of 5
Buy the paper book HERE (Book Depository)
No comments:
Post a Comment