It’s time to board the rocket ship and blast to god-
knows-fucking-where for my review of short story Sentinel. This tale, by author
Jack Hardy, is something I picked up a few weeks ago on Smashwords as a
freebie.
The story is about intergalactic,
genetically-enhanced, space thief Adrian Gates. Things start off with Adrian
heading through a market on some distant planet trying to lose someone who is
following him. But his efforts fail and he is caught by a bounty hunter called
Gu.
While Adrian is being held captive in a spaceship,
Gu reveals a devastating truth to him about his past.
And unfortunately that’s all I can really say about
Sentinel without spoiling the ending. I know it’s not much, but then again,
there’s not much substance here, even for a short story. I’ve seen longer tales
on the back of pop tart boxes.
Sentinel’s not a bad little story, the imagery is
good especially when Adrian arrives at his final location and the city he is
chased through is also well described in the narrative.
That said though, the story ultimately doesn’t go
anywhere. It would have been nice to have a couple of more twists to it and the
premise would certainly work as a full length book. But as it is, this version
just goes straight from A-B.
Sentinel gets 5/10 and is available here.
I haven't read Sentinel, but I've lately come upon a lot of works that were 'A-B', leaving no room to develop what was otherwise a really interesting idea.
ReplyDeleteIn Sentinel's defence, it is only a short story, so I'm more willing to forgive it. I usually give short stories more leeway as they've not got the space to develop their plot as far as full length novels. In full size books though, going straight from A-B is just lazy in my view. :)
ReplyDeleteIt is disappointing when a good idea is not developed far enough, I feel. I've read books like that too.