Steven William Hannah

Yaay! I finally got the chance to read the book with something that looks like a Pokémon in the cover!!! In case anyone is wondering, I only knew this story is horror with some amount of Sci-Fi in it. So I pretty much went in it without knowing anything else.

Icebreaker reminds me a lot of the anime Fafner: Dead Aggressor where some kind of alien being wreaks havoc by trying to fuse with the minds of humans. Just like in Fafner, most humans that enter contact with this unknown anomally called "a Gaia Phenomenon" end up permanently insane and die in agony a few days later.

Both stories share the similarity this invasion has been going on for several decades and has forever changed the world for the worse. Only that instead of quickly advancing technology and creating mutant humans with a mixture of alien DNA to render them nearly impervious to the insanity curse, this book has a society entering a dark age where superstition and loss of technology is the norm.

In this bleak world, a rare home taught scientist named Bear tracks down the poor victims of the insanity curse in search for possible clues to truly understand it... and close an emotional wound from his past. I quite like him as a person. Resourceful and hardworking, if the community had any lingering curiosity or he had learned to be more cunning and ambitious, Bear could have become the town's ruler ages ago. The book could have been rewritten in any different number of ways revealing a more domineering personality who formed an underground cult of fellow rationalists, reverse engineered lost technology (could he build his own crawler?) and take over his birth town. I still like the way Bear is portrayed in the book so far with a more meek persona. But I didn't quite understand how come someone as street smart as Callum didn't ask him to teach his Forestry guys CPR and how to fix bones. I am also curious to know who installed the radio towers in the first place. Most surprising indeed a town that seems to boast decent metalworking and weapon building knowledge doesn't have a handful of Forestry techs that can fix broken radio cables. On the other hand, Callum is also a very cool and likeable guy.

The prose is great and offers a dilapidated village setting with shanty roofs and a constant sense of imminent danger. In this sense, the book is fabulous, no doubt about it.

If there is one thing I felt the book was missing so far, it is: where are the women?

Almost 1 third of the book and we don't have a single sentence said by a female character. Nothing, zilch, nada. In fact, the only female character that is ever shown at all is an unconscious woman named Bee.

I feel the book picks up a lot and becomes a very thrilling read after the 33% point of the story. We get to meet the crew of the Icebreaker robot and its cute AI named May with a British accent. And yes, Bee does eventually wake up and we get to learn some things about her. And no, outside of very scant scenes where a Communications tech from Union City talks to the robot crew, there isn't any other female characters in the story. That was quite a bit of a letdown for me, but the book is nonetheless most enjoyable and becomes more of an adventure post apocalyptic Sci-Fi story than pure horror later on.

Messenger is a fine antagonist, and even Bear proves he can be a real jerk every now and then in the story. I liked getting to know the crew of the Icebreaker and the mysteries that unfurl as the story progresses. As for the writing, I spotted... quite a lot of typos. Confusion between usage of the word peek and peak, the classic their/they're, its/it's/its' and who's/whose usage mixup. Also an aversion towards using the present perfect tense. batttleship with 3 t's appears once. Most are easy typos to fix.

One thing that did drive me a bit nuts during the entire book was how characters just survive major abdominal surgery and are somehow capable of carrying 70 kg unconscious people through narrow ladder tunnels without even a menial wince of pain. In fact, major injuries happen and they seem like no big deal at all. Not something that is a major detriment towards enjoying the story, but I kept on wondering how the characters did it without using powerful pain meds.

Overall, I was expecting the book to end differently, so we do get quite a nice heap of surprises and a strong temptation for the reader to give the 2nd book in the series a chance. I enjoyed the book quite a lot and believe it certainly deserves to advance to the quarterfinals of the contest. :)… (más)

An interesting post-apocalyptic adventure where it seems dangerous to even properly comprehend the nature of the major threat. It’s written in present tense with a loosely omniscient third person viewpoint. I found that presentation odd though I guess it fits with certain questions and ambiguities about the nature of self and other.

The writing was generally tidy and easy to understand, though I tripped over a few typos (mainly homonyms). The characters (Bear, and those he meets along the way) were all distinct, with their own backgrounds, attitudes and secrets. I can’t say I felt particularly drawn towards any of them. Perhaps a good thing since some of their experiences are unpleasant, and I probably wouldn’t want to be in their heads for those.

I’m not sure I understood the explanations the ever-curious Bear uncovered about what was happening, never mind whether they were true or not. The ending isn’t a cliffhanger, but it’s clear there are even more mysteries to solve out there, which no doubt will be addressed in later books.

Overall, a weird horror SF with a lead-in to further books in the series.… (más)