Rescue at Waverly, T. J. Mott

Rating: 3 Stars 

Publisher: Indie

Genre: Sci-Fi

Length: 253 Pages

Reviewer: John

Purchase At: amazon.com

Synopsis:

Thaddeus Marcell is an enigmatic mercenary and the leader of a secretive paramilitary fleet. His group operates in the galaxy’s Independent Regions, taking on contract work for some of the star empires, interstellar corporations, and pirate groups, fighting on their behalf whenever the pay is high enough.

But despite his reputation as a skilled and reliable–although very eccentric–fleet commander, he does his work to finance his real mission: To locate and return to his missing homeworld. So when his intelligence network discovers a woman he knew from home, he must risk everything he’s ever accomplished to rescue her from a slave ship and face a number of unpleasant truths about both the galaxy and himself…

Review:

If you like a book filled with un-likeable characters, at times frustratingly long and at other times totally inadequate world building, occasional very realistic and extreme sadism plus loads of un-explored side-plots where, as a reader, you are just left hanging (e.g. always going to reverse engineer the super hyper-drive), then, Mate, this is the book for you.

I found Rescue at Waverly to be a very frustrating read. It made me angry, in fact reading it left me feeling really pissed off. But, look, as a credit to the author, I finished reading the book. So don’t get me wrong, the author can write, the book is well edited, nothing technically grated, but, sadly it was just the overall execution of the story that left me a frustrated reader. The tension built, that’s fine, but this was build, build, build, then no reader respite. There needs to be rest periods when you read a book like this. The best writers understand this, they build and release in the work itself. The need to decompress while reading should ever be overlooked in intense books. Unfortunately for me, this book just left me feeling fairly irate as I read, no pressure release, and, ultimately, “reader dissatisfied”.