Book Details:Title: Sector 64: Coup de Main
Author: Dean M. Cole
Published: 2011- Published by Author
ISBN: 978-1-460-96253-4
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 262
Rating: 1 of 5
Read in: 6 days
My Review:
I really enjoy science fiction as a whole, and I really wanted to like this book. However, that did not happen. A barbaric alien race is vaporizing everyone on the planet and it's U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Jake Giard and two of his fellow wing-men to the rescue! Unfortunately, they could not rescue me from falling asleep during most of the book...
My biggest issue with this book has nothing to do with the story itself. The copious amount of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, tense, and grammar errors made me cringe constantly. I started to mark these instances, but they are so common that I soon gave up. I understand that this novel is self-published and probably never graced the eyes of an editor, but I am a firm believer that one should edit one's work before submitting it to the general public. I'm far from perfect in these areas myself, but I do know how to use spell check and failing to catch so many errors makes the entire text seem sloppy and may cause the eyes of avid and critical readers to spontaneously bleed. Lines such as "Let's not waist [sic] Major Pell's sacrifice..." and referring to the "soul" of a shoe make me wonder how much attention the author paid to what he was writing.
The author of this novel, Dean M. Cole, is an Army vet and pilot and he uses his expertise in this area to be highly descriptive when it comes to pilot protocol and physics throughout the book. I appreciated that he is so knowledgeable, but it often left me wondering what he was talking about. I'm not well versed in physics or pilot lingo, so I felt a little left out in some parts. Another word usage problem I found was the unbelievable number of times "buddy" is used. This became a problem before I even finished the first chapter!
I had a very difficult time connecting with any of the characters and I think this was because of how weak the majority of them are. For an Air Force fighter pilot, Victor Croft is amazingly faint at heart. He is so scared and anxious almost the entire book, to the point that I was shocked he never broke down and cried. This is pretty unbelievable behavior for a war vet. I also felt that Jake's girlfriend Sandy was completely unnecessary. She played no important role in the book and only caused unnecessary distractions from the plot line.
I did appreciate the basis of the plot though. I loved that the author made the human race descended from wayward aliens. Also, the technology introduced throughout the novel was very fascinating- especially the "Turtle" ship and EVA suits. the author showed great vision and creativity in the invention of these items.
Overall, I found the dialogue to be painfully cheesy and riddled with a vast over-abundance of cliche phrases, such as "assuming makes an ass out of you and me" and "the more things change, the more they stay the same." The characters are flat and not memorable, and a little more original content would have been nice.. I give it a one-star rating.
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