Every year the city of Los Angeles, in the state of
California, holds a Book Festival where publishers and self publishers display
their books to the public.
I have a few to review. They are what would be known as self
published stories. As a whole, the area of self publication is fine when one
author decides his point of view must be released on the public, and he or she
is willing to pay-- sometimes dearly-- for the privilege of being out in the
market place.
This first book is in the genre of science fiction. It is
set in the future.
It opens with an act of defiance. In this city of salt a
young man defiles a monument. In order not to be captured he decides to die
rather than be caught and imprisoned. So he decides to bite the capsule rather than
to allow the state to capture and
terminate him. This action moves him from one state of existence to
another.
He is not dead. Or is he? He has passed from one world to
another. Will he manage to fit in?
And when he wants to redeem the world he came from, will he
succeed? Can he change it?
The book ends with him in the hospital. He has been
captured. For his crime he has lost his hand.
I see this as science fiction in the characters used. They
are not all human. There are spirits also. In this sense I see it as science
fiction but not quite fantasy.
The author’s use of the parameters of the genre
seem, to me, to be handled poorly. There is so much he could have done, but his
message—the purpose for his prose, got in the way. He seems to want to say
dreams can have the power to change reality.
He uses the symbol of the sea as the genesis of all dreams
and the force of change.
Does he succeed in proving his thesis, whatever that is?
I don’t think do. Each fiction story must have a reason for
existence. This book, in my opinion, only could have seen the light of
existence because he author found a vanity press to take his money and publish
it.
To contact the author you can go to richshapero.com.
