5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bland setting, lacking flavor..., March 23, 2004
This review is from: Signals: The Exploration Chronicles, Book 1 (Paperback)
While the plot is a solid one, dealing with subjects and issues that I found interesting, the delivery is bad. The characters are stereotypes, the setting - in the middle of the 21 century, seems no different from now. The author just adds a few things, like colonies on Mars and a few space stations.
As you read the book you might notice things are missing. Like names. What is the name of the university where some of the main characters work? What state is State Senator from? What is the name of the space station turned starship? What party does the President belong to? These tiny details are the spice of any story that helps develop it, give it background. Without them a story can be good, but not great. And this story needed them, because it was not good. Like a steak on the grill, sometimes you need something to go with it.
If you want something easy, get this book. If you want a great, detailed, book with a great ending, look someplace else.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining despite a ton of flaws and weaknesses, July 17, 2004
This review is from: Signals: The Exploration Chronicles, Book 1 (Paperback)
Kevin D. Randle is well-known as a leading figure in ufology, spearheading the search for answers at Roswell, organizing and disseminating data on other reported UFO crashes, giving voice to a sometimes unpopular viewpoint on the subject of alien abduction, and generally examining UFO evidence in its larger context. Drawing upon his knowledge of the UFO phenomenon and his military background, he has now launched a science fiction series dealing with man's first encounter with an alien race. He is not going to be winning any awards for his fiction any time soon, as it demonstrates a number of noticeable weaknesses, yet I found Signals a rather exhilarating read despite all of its internal problems.
The whole plot of the novel is surprisingly far-fetched and, at times, bordering on the ridiculous. It all starts with an announcement that a seemingly artificial signal has been detected from space. Without verification, such word should never have even gotten out, but a collection of unscrupulous characters makes Mt. Everest out of an ant hill and seemingly engineers a self-fulfilling prophecy of unlikely proportions. A state senator who wants to be a US senator takes the story, flimsy as it is, and builds a campaign on the dire threat posed by this alien ship. An unscrupulous TV reporter puts together some misleading news reports in an attempt to get national attention, and a rather loathsome doctoral candidate lends the voice of authority to some extraordinarily unscientific claims. The next thing you know there is rioting in the streets over nothing more than a possible anomaly some fifty light years away from Earth. That gets the military and eventually the President involved, rushing to "act." They don't even care what the action is, just that the people see them taking charge. Before you can say Roger Dodger, some rockets have been slapped on an old space station and a laughably incompetent set of astronauts are heading out to meet the alien ship. I mentioned the self-fulfilling prophecy, as it turns out that there is an alien spaceship, it is traveling faster than light speed, and it is heading toward our solar system.
It's a good thing this book is identified as the first of a series because the ending is, to put it lightly, anticlimactic. The words much ado about nothing come to mind here. The biggest problem with the novel, though, is the characterization. First of all, it's ridiculous that the ambitious state senator (we don't know what state) could run with this story so effectively; then you have the equally ambitious reporter who finds herself included in the mission to intercept the ship despite the fact that she does not know the difference between a galaxy and the solar system. The one honorable and knowledgeable scientist has little influence, her assistants on the space flight include one guy who only minored in astronomy, and the military outlook on all this is flighty at best. Randle struggles most with the physical descriptions of his characters, though, each of which is painfully bland and embarrassingly wooden.
Given Randle's strong background in both ufology and the military, I was actually quite surprised at the sense of implausibility pervading the entire novel. A lot of important science is just ignored - thus, you have people "running" through a weightless space pod, no mention of navigating a ship through the asteroid belt, and a slapped-together spacecraft that seems to journey from Earth out to the Oort Cloud as if it were just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Yet, as I said, I found Signals entertaining, and it held my interest throughout. Randle is not a gifted writer of fiction, but the ideas of space flight and alien encounter that define this story may keep the reader interested despite all of the book's major flaws.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Whats that smell?, June 11, 2004
This review is from: Signals: The Exploration Chronicles, Book 1 (Paperback)
Yow!! What a stinker! Did I make a mistake buying these pages full of appalling mush. Must have read the only two good pages in the shop but having tried to read the whole thing could not find those pages again. Everthing about this book sucks. Plot is moronic. The science makes no sense. They travel a light year from the solar system and then return as though popping down to the corner store with NO explanation of the propulsion system. Every character is a bland stereotype. Nothing in the plot is interesting. All over stupid.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
