Rising - Colin Andrews

Rising - Colin Andrews



A reminder again of how the scoring works: Low scores = GOOD. High scores = BAD. Points are earned based on flaws. They're taken away for super awesome moments. Star ratings are done based on number of points in comparison to the number of pages in the book. 0-20% = 1 20-40% = 2 40-60%= 3 60-80% = 4 and 80-100% =5.


REVIEW: RISING - Colin Andrews
SCORE: 55 points.
RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS:

That can be found here: http://www.colinandrews.info/Book%20Extracts.htm (along with the pretty cover and other shiny things from the author's webpage. Gorgeous site!)

And here is a book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u39VaPzuvQo

WHAT WORKS

This story begins with action, which I like. It gets right to the point of things and takes the reader on a wild Indiana Jones kind of adventure. The style is easy to read and understand. I liked most of the characters (sans one, but I have a feeling Tom was supposed to be annoying, right? right? If yes, you did a good job with that one). I don't want to give away spoilers, because that's not my style, but I will say that if you enjoy action stories with good details and diverse unique settings? You'll no doubt like this book.  There's a touch of romance, gunfire, and giant crocks! This book is a creative and imaginative work, and it's the kind of story I've been looking for because it fills a void left behind with the influx of vampire/werewolf/witches phenomena that's overloading the market. It's a great sci-fi adventure, and fairly clean. There's a little swearing, but I'd recommend it to anyone who's about fifteen and older.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK (aka earning the points)

There were a few things that threw me off. The first being some of the language didn't quite feel right. The characters spoke a lot like they were from the UK, but the narrative never specified that was where they were from so I got a little confused because I thought they were from America. I could have missed something though, because that is known to happen, but it threw me off all the same. There was a lot of British slang used in the narrative as well (non-character development type stuff), which isn't a complaint necessarily, but as an American reader it wasn't necessarily what I would call universal language use. I know enough about the terms to figure things out, but in a few areas it threw off the narrative for me all the same. Formatting was weird on my Nook, but I didn't give points for that. I'm just making a mention of it so the author knows. Over all though, the writer has a good handle on how to write.

A few spots needed some tightening, but it was refreshing to read a book by an independent author who knows how to write and bring a good story to life.  I'm definitely ready for a sequel.