PG's Books

This book has a somewhat different story than the usual run-of-the-mill science fiction stories. At least within the realm of the type of science fiction books that I usually read. The concept of science versus magic has been used in a fair amount of books already so that in itself is not very new. However, I found the setup in this book to be a bit different and quite interesting to read. The book itself is well written and paints a reasonable detailed universe as the book progresses.

One thing that I found a bit annoying was the extremely superior attitude that was shown to the “primitive colonies”. These lesser cultures should be intervened with no matter what and brought into line with the “mainstream” thinking of the “modern” humans, basta! I found that a bit distasteful. The social dreaming nonsense about no one having to work unless they wanted to was a bit misplaced in an otherwise reasonably intelligent story as well.

Apart from that I quite enjoyed the book. I found the story and the rationale behind the “magical” powers quite interesting and fun to read. Most of it is spent on scientific exploration trying to understand the seemingly magical powers that some elements of the population appears to have. Near the end of the book it does heat up with a bit of action though.

although the book definitely have an adequate conclusion such that you do not feel cheated at the end it does leave a fair amount of unclosed threads of which especially one is hopefully going to be the foundation for a follow-up book. The author seems to have the intention that this will indeed be the first book in a series (Inverse Shadows).

If a follow-up book is made I will definitely pick it up. Actually, this was the first book by this author that I have read and, given the qualities of this one, I will more than likely have a go at a few more books from Christopher Nuttall.