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Year 7007 – Fable of a forgotten planet
"Indeed!", you are thinking, as you prepare to toss the book into the garbage bag. But for some reason, let us say, you don’t. You even get past an over-written editor’s note, and start reading… You won’t stop till you finish it. For one thing this author does have a great story to tell, and an extraordinary ability to create and maintain suspense and tension. It is both taut and mesmerising. If only the blurb writer had a sense of restraint and better punctuation! As for the writing itself, you will have plenty to complain about. Surprisingly good lines are interspersed with bad patches of writing replete with mixed and inappropriate metaphors and others figures that just don’t work. There are some flaws in the plot and narration, and the scientific terminology that is intended to sound erudite and convincing is often patently made-up and absurd. Yet, there are discussions about subjects like human consciousness that are spot on. Another quibble is the easy choice of a Western hero: rather like how, in school days, we thought stories had to have Western characters because that is how Enid Blyton did it. But for all that, reading this story of an intergalactic diplomat and the mysterious woman he meets on an equally mysterious far-away planet, is an absorbing experience. It does make you think, and you always want to know what happens next. In the end, that is what storytelling is all about.
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AN unknown author, an unknown
publisher. And if the title and the garish cover do not put off the passing
browser, the back-of-the-book blurbs will – "a taut psychological
mesmerizing tale… it works at many levels with the reader and gives a choice
to accept it as a fascinating thriller or a book to transform ones thinking…a
must read multi-generational novel."