Customer Reviews

A Star Curiously Singing

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In a futuristic world where sharia law is in place and mankind relies on technology to perform the simplest task, DR63 "SandFly" is about to find his life turned upside down. A `Chosen One', SandFly was chosen as a youth to be implanted with a device that would allow him to speak to all of the machines that run the planet. Even though this would seem to give him incredible, unstoppable power, it does not because those in charge who `chose him' hold a controller that zaps him if disobeys. SandFly is a tool who belongs to a master, no more, no less. So how can he change the world? And what's wrong with the world anyway?

I'll leave that up to you to find out. Let me just tell you how fun this book was to read.

As an author myself, I read lots and lots of books. Some I enjoy, some not so much. This book, A STAR CURIOUSLY SINGING, is one that I hated to put down and I couldn't get it out of my mind. Because of my work load, I was only able to pick it up an hour at a time, but every time I set it down to go back to work, I thought about it all day. I sympathized and fell in love with the lead character immediately and worried for him as I longed to get back to the book. I can easily say that this is one of the best books I have ever read, and this is my very first sci-fi novel.

A review would not be complete without mentioning the technical aspects of Nietz's method and style of writing. SandFly speaks in first person, and he speaks often to me, the reader. He calls me a `freehead' (I have no implant, you see!) and through his point of view, I know him very intimately--and I like him! He is such a well-rounded, three-dimensional character that I felt often that that if I released just a little bit, I could imagine he is real and this book is true. I am looking forward to reading the sequel to this story THE SUPERLATIVE STREAM.

Bravo Mr. Nietz and God bless,

Ellen C Maze

Author of Curiously Spiritual Vampire Tales

Meet Sandfly, a debugger controlled by his masters through an implant in his head. He is surprised when he is sent to an orbiting space station to cary out repairs on a robot - don't they have any fix-it people up there already?

In any case there is more to it than meets the eye, and a tangled web of concealments and intentions grows up around the young man as he tries to solve the impossible problem. The cynical control practiced by the masters is chilling to say the least.

The culture is described carefully and circumspectly, not naming any names, although its nature is obvious from the first glance. A wonderfully creative touch comes by way of Sandfly's bizarre dreams, caused by a lack of proper sleep on the space station.

The story's told from inside Sandfly's head, in arresting real-time style. When it turns out that the robot has learned something new and vital and dangerous about the nature of the universe, we see that the story is just beginning. Sandfly's life is going to change forever. But the book ends in a good place with all the strands wrapped up in a satisfying ending.

This may be one of the most unusual books I've picked up this year. Events proceed surely and steadily, but are absolutely gripping. Who could have imagined that a story about fixing a robot could be so completely engrossing?

I almost feel like what I'm about to write should be read by Don LaFontaine. But here we go . . .

In a world where Shari'a law is the rule and norm, SandFly is a debugger. He has an implant in his brain that allows him to access computer systems and robots, fixing and reprogramming them from within. But the implant also inhibits him, blocking "bad" thoughts and actions from ever forming.

His master sends him out on a mission to work on a robot that was part of the first interstellar flight to an alien star. On the trip, something caused the robot to tear itself to pieces. SandFly's job is to find out what that was.

The problem is, if he does, he puts himself and the whole world in jeopardy.

That's the plot of A Star Curiously Singing by Kerry Nietz.

I really enjoyed this book. Nietz puts together a very intricate world with its own terminology, rules, and mores and employs it effectively. At first, I had a little bit of trouble digesting it all. We dive in with both feet into SandFly's world, which has a lot of flash and jargon to it. Getting used to the ideas of debuggers, the stream, downriders, and so on and so forth. But once I got into it, everything flowed quite nicely. I especially appreciated Nietz's made up "cursing." Crichton and clarke!

The dystopian feel to it worked as well. Neitz's posited future, one where a certain monotheistic religion basically conquers the world, felt plausible and fully realized. The only thing that bothered me about that was referring to people as "Abduls." It was so constant it almost felt unnecessarily disrespectful. I understood the reasoning toward the end when Neitz explained it, but by then, I wonder if other readers might not be turned off.

The interesting thing is that if you read the backcover copy of the book (which I did not summarize completely in my "Mr. Movie Voice" business above), you pretty much will know the whole plot. It doesn't stray that much from it. But the really cool thing is that Neitz keeps you going. It's a fun read and a wild ride through the future. I'm looking forward to what I assume will be a series following the further adventures of SandFly.

I am not an expert and this is my first review ever but A Star Curiously Singing really deserves some praise and the time taken to share these lines about my experience. I am a fan of classic science fiction of the sort of Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Rene Barjavel. Although this book is clearly not your regular sci-fi book (it's narrated by the main character in first person, you don't get space marines or ray weapons, aliens or space pirates, etc, and other characters types and gadgets of mass consumption) it really stands out as a very creative and engaging narrative of futuristic fiction with a social twist of the sort of "Starship Troopers".

I wonder why the author replaces curses by the words "Clarke and Critchon" or "blinking"... Maybe he has a brain implant himself, like the one the character of his book has, and he fears the inherent behavior-control "tweaks" that could come if he curses in his book? :)

The story is set in a futuristic human society where radical Islam (or islamic fascism) and distorted islamic law rules all countries on Earth. Yet technology was embraced by the radicals as a mean to defeat the other ideologies throughout the centuries. Sandfly, a "debugger" (a troubleshooter or problem solver) of the nano-technology that dominates every aspect of the economy and lifestyle of this world, faces the problem of his life.

Debuggers are not many and they are a class or servants, each one with a controlling master. Brain implants control their thought patterns and behavior via painful brain "tweaks", some automated and some manually induced by the master. Bots are aplenty and although semi-intelligent, they are still machines with programmed behavior. Debuggers fix bots and other machines who rely on nano-bots to work. Debuggers are the scientists, the engineers, the mechanics, in this society.

There are five levels of Debuggers, from level 10 to 15, each level representing the skills level (or implant software version) and degree of freedom of access to the "Stream" (a sort of wireless internet) that this class requires to research, communicate and code. In the view of the ruling masters (the "Abduls", as Debuggers call them), the Debuggers are a necessary evil, a workforce at the service of private companies and also the islamic state (governed by the Imam) when required.

Sandfly has a problem that he thinks he cannot solve. A nightmare with no possible solution. He faces life or death situations where he has to make difficult choices. But first and foremost, he has to find out what's wrong with a bot that tore itself apart during the first interstellar space-time trip in human history. Apparently, when orbiting a distant irregular red star, the Bot encountered himself a problem he could not solve. What caused this malfunction?

Believe it or not, a plot apparently dull on paper unfolds as an adventure with some "Matrix" like flavor with religious connotations.

I can't wait for the sequel.

So I'm still awake and still at work at 10pm - not uncommon for people in the film business - and I have to go the bathroom and I can tell it's gonna take a little while.
I look around and see that book in the pile on my desk, the vaguely middle-eastern/Star Trek: TNG inspired cover boasting my cousin's name and think, what the hey, now's as good a time as any. (Sorry Kerry, but our little society is built on the assumption that people we know are capable of doing only what we've seen them do. I didn't know if you could write a novel or not.)
Anyway, I get in there and read the first few pages, flush, don't think a lot more about it.
Except that for some reason it's midnight and I can't figure out where I'm going next with my work - and I'm kind of curious about what happens to that Slumdog Debugger who just saved the girl and should be dead, but isn't.
I start reading again.
I didn't get my work done that night (and I had a deadline, thanks man). I didn't sleep much, either.
The thing about this book is, it's seriously not like another book I've read. Sure, there are some genre assumptions and some fun homages, but really, things that happen in this book SHOULdn't happen by conventional rules. It's not PC, it doesn't cater to any one particular market, and yet I felt entirely catered to. I wanted to ask the questions and I wanted to know the answers.
The short-and-sweet: a pretty dang feasible reality, some great characters, an intriguing mystery and a plot that moves at a good clip.
And I actually put the book down at points because I had to take the time out to be... grateful.
Definitely not a bathroom book.
Unless you especially like that sort of thing.

A Star Curiously Singing resonates with me the way Asimov did. Its social issues are carefully considered, informing the sci-fi plot. In the grand tradition of science fiction, the story turns on societal worldview.

The setting:

I've read work where secular thinking becomes the enforced norm; work where Judeo-Christian-based thinking is the threat. Kerry Nietz gives us a glimpse into a world where some variant of Islamic thinking is the state-mandated perspective.

Of more immediate impact than this is the social state of main character Sandfly, who is a powerful slave controlled by an internal brain implant. Even Sandfly doesn't consider himself really human. He's an intellectual cyborg.

Sandfly's circumstances could exist in any sci-fi work involving state control, but actually, the plot hinges on there being a non-Christian religious element to that control. It just wouldn't work with secularism. Nietz gets my full endorsement for weaving the religious elements into an organic necessity, avoiding cliche or sermonizing.

The plot:

Sandfly is dispatched by his master to solve a mystery from space. He hates space. He also soon realizes very weird things are going on. He's been given a robot to fix, but if he does, things will get life-threateningly messy.

And he's not even able to complain. If he does, the built-in controls of the chip in his head will punish him with a hard shot to the pain sensors. Nonetheless, he has a few methods for dealing with his masters' controls.

The genre elements:

The sci-fi elements are great, the balance of technical-vs-vague is excellently handled. I am enthralled by Nietz's spaceship, DarkTrench. The very ideas of the star curiously singing, of the datastream running through Sandfly's head, build a strong, unique technological world.

In fact, the book's structure itself reflects its storyworld. It's written in first-person present, as if the reader is plugged into Sandfly's data stream. I am so refreshed to see a revival of the grand tradition of author speaking to reader, done in a futuristic way, no less.

The spiritual element is slowly revealed, and again, very organic, very piquing, with a tug of the heart and a shiver down the spine. It is not overstated, but it is clear.

Alongside The Dark Man, with Starfire coming in close to the top as well, this is one of my favourite Marcher Lord Press books so far.

For quite a while I've known about this book but didn't really want to read it due to the description. It sounded kind of hokey - a future where sharia law is the law of the land and there are tech-slaves that fix stuff. I thought it would be silly and contrived. However since the reviews were so good I gave it a shot and I loved it. I mean I really loved it. The writing is fantastic, flowing smoothly, drawing the reader into the story. We follow the main character Sandfly, really getting to know him. He becomes very real to the reader and we feel what he feels.

The overall story was very Hitchcock in its presentation. That slow reveal in a story where you know something really bad is going to happen but you have no idea what it is. A Star Curiously Singing had me gripped but not in a page-turner way but in a rich, intriguing, sophisticated story. I couldn't wait to until my evening read time.

As a novel written from a Biblical worldview it was most interesting. A ~ A-cubed was not mentioned much but A and the falsehood of it was. Not from a theological perspective as much as an application of it's edicts. The story begs the questions: Is truth something that frees you or enslaves you? How does God interact with His creation?

I'm a bit peeved at myself for not ordering the second book in this series "The Superlative Stream" when I first realized how good this book was. Unfortunately the price for the Kindle addition tripled. Why, I do not know but I'm going to keep an eye on it and see if the price goes back down.

If you like or dislike sci-fi grab yourself a copy of this book. Kerry Nietz has proven himself to be a worthy author in this genre and if I guess correctly, any genre.

1 Star = Pathetic
2 Stars = Fair
3 Stars = Good
4 Stars = Excellent
5 Stars = Life changing

For those who give me a negative mark on my review please comment and let me know why. I'd like to improve my reviews so they can be more helpful to those who read them. Thank you.

"A Star Curiously Singing" is an offbeat, unconventional and enchanting read.

I enjoy stories - I have since childhood - all kinds of them, crossing genres and periods. If an author can rub words together, conjure a world and people it with complex characters, I will follow him or her just about anywhere.

So I'm pleased to report - I will go with Kerry Nietz to the stars.

Fast forward five centuries. One particular religious/cultural group dominates this brave new world. Call them "Abduls." And yes, everyone is compelled to pray to "A," while facing "M".

Well - almost everyone. There's an elite group that prowls this technological future, fixing things. They are the debuggers. Unlike their hirsute overlords, the fixers are taken from their parents early and "de-haired" - but baldness is just the skin-deep manifestation of their true transformation.

Like our hero, Sandfly, debuggers have an implant in their brains. It plugs them into the "stream" - the internet to the nth degree. This empowers their work - imagine the schematics of every bot at your neuron-tips. But these potentially powerful specialists have limiters built in. Even begin to think something forbidden, and the brain pain crackles.

An Abby master (and each debugger has one) carries a remote that gives him the digital whip hand. Those like Sandfly (and his female counterpart, HardCandy), must knee-jerk to the master's every wish in order to avoid the screaming heebie-jeebies between the ears.

But as Sand is about to discover, a spaceship, "Dark Trench," has returned from a journey to a far-off star. There, something traumatic and infinitely mysterious transpired. A robot tore itself apart as a result - and an artifact of its memory provides a glimpse into the significance of the novel's title.

It sets off a chain reaction that will spin our hero's life around - and may even transform distopia.

In the nature of fantasy series like Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and Herbert's "Dune" books, "Star" is the alpha volume of the Dark Trench Saga.

Come, freehead. Travel to the stars and find out what - or Who - is out there.

OK, so I'm no expert on Sci-fi. I haven't read a sci-fi book since Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles in high school, which was 30 years ago. I loved it and read it every year for several years.
Then SandFly showed up in A Star Curiously Singing. In my estimation, both this and its sequel (The Superlative Stream) are in no way inferior to such sci-fi classics.
Dive into these books, and you'll find yourself in a fabulously teched-out new world that's frighteningly like our own.
I read this and Superlative Stream on the deck of a cruise ship, lost track of time, and got a nasty sunburn. It was so worth it!

A Star Curiously Singing is the first title in the Dark Trench Saga, written by Kerry Nietz and published by Marcher Lord Press. Sandfly is a debugger, a man who has been modified to connect to a vast information source, the stream, to fix whatever problems arise in the masters' technology. His modification lies in the form of an implant, which allows him access to the stream, and also restricts anything but a humble attitude. He is given an unusual task one day: to fix a robot. The only confusing variables in this task are that this robot tore itself apart, and that it had just returned from a maiden voyage on an upgraded ship. Investigating further, he finds that this robot heard singing, and this singing has a peculiar effect on robots, debuggers, and humans. What he will find will change his viewpoint over everything.
A Star Curiously Singing is a jewel among speculative fiction. It takes a marvelous idea (the stream) and makes it modern technology: understandable and useful. The characters have great freedom in the sense that their emotions do not have to be shown to the reader very much, as they are themselves encouraged to forget emotion completely. However, at the end, emotion requires a strong foundation, which had been growing throughout the book. Above all, it shows God (A~Ał) very clearly through natural revelation (revelation through God's creation). It portrays the concept of "new birth" (in the guise of "reprogramming") very accurately. Overall, this book is a five-star wonder!