Bookworm Speaks!- Stranded by Arthur Wyllie Review

Bookworm Speaks!

Stranded by Arthur Wyllie

****

The Story: Plusar is a world that is ruled by force and governed by fear. The dominant race is the Elas. They are the winged beings that use their power of flight to maintain a tyrannical rule over the other tribes. They are a ruthless race that kill and enslave members of the other tribes at will. The arrival of Colonel Eric Eichstaedt, Major Ryan Gibbons and Alana McGovern cause a great upheaval in the rule of the Elas. After they escape from the Elas slave camp, they befriend Tanel, a one-eyed humanoid called a Latosian. Together they battle the strange beasts and primitive warrior tribes of Plusar. The three astronauts must use all their knowledge and training to survive and try to find a way to get back to their base on Mars. But their Trimordium crystals were depleted during the trip. Without them to power the ships engines, they will be Stranded.

The Good: The Good? The Good? No…No! There is only one thing in this book that can be quantified as good. It is a small line near the beginning after the main characters are captured by the aliens. The Aliens do not have any females of their species, and they ask Alana why she is shaped so differently from the others. She says: All the females of my species have bodies shaped like mine” Alana answered. 

“Oh, if that were only so” Quipped the Colonel. 

“Shut Up!” Alana snapped back at him. 

That line is good. Its actually quite clever and is probably what would be said in a situation such as the one described in the book. It’s all downhill from there though. Bookworm would go so far as that it never went uphill in the first place. 

The Flaws: This book is awful. Seriously it is. Bookworm could only read this is short bursts as every time he did so he felt his brain cells die. It is very easy to see why this was published independently and why it was found in the Half-Price Books clearance sale. It’s bad!

One of the main problems with this book is that there is next to no exposition save for the introduction. While plot dumps are not always the best techniques, the author does need to take time and explain what is going on in some fashion. This never happens in this book, it just moves from event to the next. It’s little more than a ‘list story.’ Where scenes are just listed: and this happened and then this happened. The tone almost never changes through ought the entirety of the text. The tone of the introduction is the same as that of what passes for a climax. As a result there is almost no emotional attachment to any part of this book. The reader does not feel suspense, no thrill during action scenes, nothing! Just annoyance at how flat the whole text is. The characters are not much better…at all. They are a bland, flat, cardboard cut outs that a not at all memorable. Some plot twists are shoehorned in every now and then to try to make the text more interesting but they don’t work, if anything it makes it seem more an act of desperation to make the text interesting. 

Seriously, there’s stuff on fanfiction.net  and fimfiction.net that is far better than this. At least there is stuff to put the story in some context. This book is just lazy. 

Final Verdict: Support your independent writers and booksellers. But never forget the old adage: Caveat Emptor. 

One out of Five Stars. 

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