Chad Schimke

This was a free download.

The beginning part, about the Roswell alien crash was pretty interesting. Then the story got confusing. Apparently, the aliens can turn humans into walkers, or vampires. It is an interesting idea for a story, but the writing style had me a little confused.

Each section seems to be a jump of several years, but I had a difficult time seeing how they were related. Jumping to a new point of view and a new narrator so many times made it hard to keep the story straight in my mind. The writing seemed very clinical and emotionless to me, like I was reading a scientific report. I felt no connection to any of the characters.

This could turn into a good book, if more time is spent on the characters, so we have someone to root for.… (més)

[b:Walker|297929|Urban Shaman (Walker Papers, #1)|C.E. Murphy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298496352s/297929.jpg|289053] is available to read free on GoodReads.

This novella - vignette? - cunningly mixed sci-fi and fantasy fiction. It melded some general tropes in interesting ways that reminded me a bit of [b:Dead Space|5850806|Dead Space|Antony Johnston|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255758379s/5850806.jpg|6022947] and the prologue of [b:Spin the Sky|13584828|Spin the Sky|Katy Stauber|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1340745851s/13584828.jpg|19171915]. Just a bit, though. Not too much. While some of the tropes are common, I'm not entirely certain that this hasn't been done before. I'm not well enough read in scifi to say such.

While the concepts were interesting, I wasn't too fond of the execution. The piece read a bit too much like an outline or a rough draft for my taste. While the expansion potential was very high - there's a novel, or even a series hiding in there - I had trouble getting into the style and understanding what was going on from scene to scene. The piece would benefit from a rewrite expanding the ideas and focusing more on each character.

I wanted to feel in the piece rather than an outside observer. I wanted to be more attached to each of the characters and truly understand the system that the Watchers, Walkers, and Hybrids were forced into and make sense of the social structure. There's enough to be drawn upon to make this something much bigger, and I hope that [a:Chad Schimke|5624972|Chad Schimke|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1329630119p2/5624972.jpg] realizes that and works with it.

… (més)