Review::Fear The Sky by Stephen Moss

Fear the Sky by Stephen Moss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Fear The Sky(The Fear Saga Book1)by Stephen Moss

I looked into this novel by way of someones recommendation that it was unique hard science fiction debut novel of a higher caliber than many of those out there today. I can't say I didn't enjoy it because I did and though I struggled to get through it in one night, I almost pulled it off. It is well written and I give it high marks for keeping me entertained, but for that I have to be honest and dispute a few of the notions someone else had when the recommended it to me.

This novel is a great novel for those who like their Science Fiction heavily dominated by the Science. I'm not absolutely certain that it is hard, while in many areas it clearly seems like magic. But the science is also dominated by some procedural elements that give it that firmer feel like one might get from a David Weber novel. What I mean by that is we get the length descriptions of the hardware being used and mix in a bit of the science with that and then we get a few quick action scenes where some of the science gets used.

This novel is also pretty heavy into the political end of things and also the familiar intricate suspense building of espionage similar to the Honor Harrington novels.

What the book might lack is a firm development of characters. There is character development but between the dominant science and politics and the large cast, the development of characters suffers a bit. I love great charactorization in my novels and missed out a bit on that in the wide spread nature of this novel.

The plot itself seemed to take a blend of Battlestar Galactica and it's old and new cast of evil to mix a robot with human outer skin much like what is seen in the first Terminator movie. From there it's the old invasion trope with a slight twist in that the aliens want the Earth intact with absolutely no human life remaining. To do that they need to be sure that all nuclear war material is neutralized, which accounts for the Android like advance force they send. The setup for invasion and the long logical discovery of that invasion dominate a large portion of the novel and almost drag it down and it doesn't really take off until the investigators are absolutely certain that they are witnessing the beginning of a potential invasion. The upside to this is that that portion of the novel sets the characters of the two main characters I found the most intriguing.

So if you like those heavily dominant Science and Political scenarios with the espionage to keep you on the edge of your seat and some few examples of how devastating the gap is between the struggling Humans and the aliens, to the tune of a heartless machine against flesh, then this is the book for you. There are at least a couple characters that you might find that you sympathize with though if you're like me you might be disappointed that there is little time left to examine them closely.

Good read for SFF fans who love the procedural science and tech dominated fiction.

J.L. Dobias



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