Tarizon: The Liberator

Bookworm Speaks!

Tarizon: The Liberator

by William Manchee

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Acquired: Dallas Public Library Book Sale

Series: Tarizon Trilogy (Book 1)

Hardcover: 370 pages

Publisher: Top Publications, Ltd.; 1 edition (November 1, 2009)

Language: English

Subject: Children’s Books, Science Fiction and Fantasy

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The Story: When a teenager discovers his father is working on a secret government project with aliens from the planet Tarizon, the project is compromised and Peter Turner must accept exile or be killed. Tarizon is recovering from a series of super volcanic eruptions that nearly destroyed all life on the planet. It is slowly recovering ecologically but the political situation is volatile. The fight is between the Purists who want to rid Tarizon of a growing mutant population and eliminate all non-human intelligent life-forms, and the Loyalists who want to restore the Supreme Mandate that guarantees freedom and basic rights for all humans and other sentient beings. Videl Lai has become Chancellor in a tainted election. Once in power, he renounces Tarizon's constitution, The Supreme Mandate, and orders the extermination of all non-human life forms. The Loyalist party anticipating Videl's rise to power, has been planning a civil war to restore rule under the Supreme Mandate and stop the genocide. But the Loyalist Party is weak and there is little hope it will be able to defeat Videl Lai and his formidable army. The only hope seems to be a prophecy that foretells of the arrival of a Liberator from Earth who would lead a revolt to rid Tarizon of a ruthless dictator. Peter, much to his shock and dismay, soon learns that many on Tarizon believe that he is this Liberator and is expected to lead the revolution against Videl Lai and free the Nanomites, Mutants and Seafolken from bondage.

The Review: Where to begin?

Getting through this book was a challenge, but Bookworm makes it a point of personal pride to state that they have finished every book they have started reading.  The most glaring flaw in this whole book is the lack of creativity. The inhabitants of planet Tarizon look almost exactly like humans and can even breed with them. This feels extremely lazy on the part of the author and just feels like it was a way to squeeze in a romantic subplot into the story. The world-building, a critical part of any science-fiction and fantasy tale, felt rather half-heartedly done. According to the author’s biography, they have spent the majority of their writing career creating mystery novels. This book itself, is apparently meant to be a spinoff of a popular series of the authors. 

Perhaps it would have been better if they had stuck with writing mysteries, or at least co-wrote the work with a science-fiction writer. 

Bookworm never got the impression that this was part of a larger series. In 

This book is not aided by what feels like very shoehorned in Christian morality. On top of that, there is also disturbing amount of American jingoism. The main character is a patriot and a good Christian and that is pretty much the extent of his character. This was a running problem throughout the whole novel. The characters are extremely weak with barely more than two dimensions, if any at all. The romantic interest that tickles the fancy of the main character is barely worth mentioning. What makes it even worse, when it does surface, it can get very uncomfortable due to the fact that the main character is seventeen years old. 

Science Fiction is infamous among the literary circles for its persistent use of plot dumps. These are passages where story concepts are explained, either to the audience or to the particular point-of-view character, through the use of large blocks of text where the story is more or less paused. Some writers try to let the story explain things to the reader. Other writers say they are a necessity, given the high concepts that tend to be utilized in science fiction. Some readers enjoy them. What is agreed upon, is that using too many plot dumps can seriously harm a story. This story? It was harmed. It seems as though most of the text consists of things just being explained. The story just seemed to be talking at the main character instead of showing him the world around him. It gets really boring for the reader and may tempt them to just skimming entire passages. 

The Final Verdict: There is no easy way to say this, so Bookworm is just going to say it: This book was terrible. It could have had potential but it ultimately was an onslaught of cliched writing, boring exposition, and flat characterization. The only reason Bookworm would considered reading the sequels would be to complete the set and add to his library. 

The Rating:  One Flying Saucer out of Five

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