I always was a bit of a crazy reader and it is still one of my favorite past-time activity. So don’t be surprised if time to time I drop a book review.
So I lived through my first week of steeming it. Might as well pick a book from a steemian. Right? So browsing brought me to Pressure, by @alexbeyman.
The blurb: Three miles beneath the waves, the crew of the Argyro deep sea research station studies exotic life in a world without sun. None could've realized what waited for them in the trench below...until it reached out to their dreams.
Genre: short story, horror
I read it in one sitting. Yes partially because doh…it is a short story. But readers know that even short story’s sometimes needs more than one sitting. My main issue is that it has this great concept, it’s original, I would dare to say even griping BUT it lacks. What it mainly lacks is another 100 pages. 100 pages of all the emotional crap that makes us human. The emotional baggage that makes you love or hate the characters. They felt ... well ... flat. I was pulled by the story but had no emotional attachment towards the main protagonist.
Another issue I had is with the writing style. Well maybe not writing style per say, since some sentences were pure poetry:
Arms belonging to some unseen person reached down through the hatch, like the hands of God descending from the clouds in a pillar of sunlight.
I could quote and quote ... But here is the problem with elaborate sentences and words. They break the flow of the reading. Yes, English is not my mother language and yes, I don’t use it in my life (except here). But so far I never had so many issues and like I said … I do read a lot and 99% of the time books are in English. Yet here I was…thanking kindle cloud for having a dictionary. While this is very good for my self-learning, I dislike it while reading because it breaks the flow.
So to tight things up … I’m pissed. Yes. I’m pissed because this could be so much bigger and grander. I’m pissed for the offered premise that failed … I’m pissed for the newborn baby that could grow up into something exceptional but got snuffed in early stages and now all that is left is an idea of what it could have been.
After all this ranting would I still recomend it? Yes.
Since this was published in 2013 I am expecting some growth in Little Robot (2017), which I'm gonna set my teeth in this weekend.
Want me to review your work? Don't.
