Peter CawdronBesprekingen

I am almost finished sampling the original team Epic's quarterfinalists. This time, it was the turn to read The Art of War. The book starts with a raunchy morning of forbidden love making between a gullible American astronaut named Michael (but everyone calls him Mike) and a reclusive female Chinese astronaut named Li Jing. Both countries are programmed to operate a space mission together in a few months and were doing training exercises in Paris. I initially surmised Li is a spy and her skittishness later on along with using Whatssapp instead of a separate burner cellphone were dead giveaways.

Michael was ok enough, just ridiculously gullible. His descriptions of Shanghai were quite believable, albeit vague. I have visited that city and think his impressions of the city were actually quite toned down when it comes to the massive crowds during rush hour. I didn't care about the chapter where Mike is having a picnic with his girlfriend (was he cheating on her with Li?). That chapter could be skipped without issue. I also felt that chapter didn't make sense since the rest of the story mentions he went directly to Houston after returning from Paris.

Lisa's story is quite entertaining so far. We learn about US navy boats and some basic aspects of officer Navy combat doctrine. Whether the author is military or not, the research was quite extensive and it shows.

Now, here comes the bad. While I do like the story so far and the 2 POV characters, some chapters could either be eliminated (the picnic one) or remove a few pages of excessive filler description and it would not alter the book at all. I think by eliminating 10% of the text, the book would shine a whole lot more. I spotted one present perfect tense error and the book can't seem to agree on whether being written in present or past tense.

So far, we don't see any hints of Sci-Fi, but the story is certainly really setting in motion at this point. While I don't believe the book will reach the finals of the contest because there are other competitors in its group that are far more polished, I will vote yes to let it advance to the Quarterfinals.

3zekiel is an interesting read. I found the action slow and laborious but its first-contact methodology was innovative and conceivable. My only regret is that the book’s ending left my reading efforts unrewarded. The main character never does meet the aliens that intergalactically abducted him and his friends, although they were described to him by one of his fellow captives when he awakened from being cryonically frozen. Perhaps, the inevitable first-contact experience will be described in a 3zekiel (First Contact) sequel book.

just ok, not my fav. by him. would not read again

A hidden gem!

Easy gripping read with lots of action, science and an interesting premise. I wasn't particularly taken with the ending.

When Alastair Reynolds meets Jules Verne, what could possibly go wrong?

This was a fun read. It was more than I expected, and that's always great. And, I enjoyed where it ended, which is satisfying. The element of silliness held up remarkably well against the more serious elements, to my surprise. For me, it would have earned the fifth star by a surprising theme, but hey. It didn't need to be that kind of story.

I'd read Cawdron's other work without hesitation, the highest compliment I know how to give.

I knew this would be weird. I've read Alien Space Tentacle Porn.

The pacing is effective what with all the escalating events one after the other yanking Jazz deeper and deeper into trouble and weirdness such that I yelped at the end.

Yelped.

I yelped.

Nicely done.

Just, go read this. It's short, and weird (I expect this from Mr. Cawdon) and then... Ah.

Then.

Go on. Trust me, read this one.

One thing bugged me about this novel, but I'll get to it in a minute. First, this First Contact science fiction story totally succeeds in taking every typical sf FC concept and running with it or flipping it around on the reader. Cawdron understands the tropes very well. Five stars for concepts! I was pretty sure I knew how it had to end, and I was right, but that in no way disappointed me because of how it was revealed. One of the tropes the author used is 'common guy thrown into alien situation.' It's handled really well. In fact, I enjoyed every character.

The story is a little slow. There are some valid reasons. But, some of the slowness was the language around Teller's thoughts, mostly the ones about Cathy. Most of that wasn't necessary when their dialogue and actions revealed nearly everything. It wasn't quite insulting, but it was close, and I'm not sure what it was for. Or who.

Or, maybe I am sensitized now. After two years of reading some really fine romance novels, I appreciate the authors who can reveal a great deal through dialogue and actions, relying only a little on a character's thoughts. But there's a place for more thoughts, particularly in this kind of story, and much of those were necessary. Just, not so much restating what dialogue and actions have just shown us. Overall, not critical. But I'm picky. :)

This! This is a great time travel science fiction story!

Feedback is so good. I've tried many a free novel, and this one's among the gems I'd have paid for, which is the highest compliment I know how to give. It isn't perfect but those imperfections were in craft, not plot or characters, and I know he's learned his craft since its release, because I stumbled across Peter Cawdron's work via his book Alien Space Tentacle Porn, a title I made a face at. I couldn't tell from title or description/blurb, but the e-sample sold me. It's funny and complex and you should go read it, too.

Anyway. Do you love sf? First contact stories? Time travel stories? Stories that have tragedy but are also positive? Read this one.

A softer take on first contact with aliens.

I've been eyeing Cawdron's books for a while now, but could never decide on what to pick up because he's so prolific. This one caught my eye on Scribd while I was searching for something quick to listen to, and I'm glad I picked it.

The story is rather short and as such, I didn't really for any deep attachments to the characters (I rarely do with short fiction) but the characters all felt very real nonetheless.

The author comments on his decision of choosing to write a main character who's gay instead of straight in the afterword, and I appreciate his intent. The only nit-picky thing for me was the main character's own insistence on referring to himself as, for instance, a gay accountant, as opposed to just an accountant.

There was also commentary on micro-aggressions on minorities as well as on societal power hierarchies based on skin color and gender. I have to admit I'm usually a little put off if an author chooses to educate their readers on social justice matters in a story that otherwise has no bearing on said topics, but I liked how Cawdron handeled it here.

The story would have benefitted from having a little more meat on it's bones, but for the amount of words that were used here, I really enjoyed it. I'll definitely pick up more books from this author in the future.

3,5 stars, but I'm rounding up.

On one hand, I really, really liked the concepts and ideas in this book, so they were five stars across the board.

On the other hand, I found the main character a not so stellar choice for our narrator. I just didn't think he made a very believable person, let alone a teenage boy (from the way he spoke to the way he thought). I do appreciate a teenage protagonist who isn't the chosen one who saves the day, but I think the author took it too far. The main character kept repeating (in his thoughts) how he's just a teen in all this, and he was generally way more instrospective and perceptive than anyone without a psychology degree ought to be (to the point where he made pretty far fetched deductions about the reasons behind people's behaviour on several occasions).

There also weren't many female characters of much substance in the story, and those that occured were mothers/love interests/martyrs/damsels in distress. I don't think it was malicious in any way, it just came across like a pretty large oversight. I vastly prefer books where both men and women are depicted as humans with agency, warts and all.

Also, as I read this on March 3rd in 2022, I really could have done without the Evil Russians Threatening the Safety of Everyone on a Global Scale plot device.

Summa summarum; a book with great ideas, mediocre characters, not much emotional impact, yet a decent enough plot.

Chinese, Eurasian, Russian and American teams have established a colony on Mars. It's built into existing lava tubes under the surface, where they grow crops with grow lights and mechanical harvesters and tenders, in the intersection of the four pods, under a sealed dome. Shortly after the opening of the story, nuclear war breaks out on Earth, with key cities destroyed, all over the planet. It's not clear who bombed who, but all the colonists are ordered back to their respective tubes, and suspicion of each other stops any cooperation. A resupply ship scheduled to land and replenish the colonists' supplies, additionally bringing another 3D printer, is reported by the computer systems to have missed rendezvous. But the protagonist has her doubts, so she takes a river out on an unauthorized trip to the landing site, and nearly dies, as the life support systems show a nearly drained battery when she has the return trip still to make. It looks like sabotage, and back in the colony, members start dying. Now the colonists start questioning who started war on Earth, and who is killing colonists on Mars?

Nice. Deserves much more readers, reviews and attention. In case you were very curious about the title, 3zekiel doesn't play a big part. Or at least not the 3 in 3zekiel.
But it doesn't matter, the story was great and it's fast paced and you'll love the characters.

"Books live and die based on the enthusiasm of readers.", Peter Cowdron said in the afterword. So come on, pick up a copy.

I've seen a bunch of reviews complaining that Russians are bad guys in this book. I guess the author could have easily avoided this cliche. But it's equally easy for the reader to do that too. Wherever you see the word Russians pretend it says Australians or whichever nation is the least typical villain in your view.

Cause their actions in the book are not cliche, on the contrary. So think Brazilians or whatever allows you to get past this small glitch, and enjoy the book.

I've listened to this book narrated out loud by Evie. Which makes a great book even better

I don't get the great reviews. The writing is clumsy, amateurish. I got maybe 1/3 of the way through and asked myself, "why are you wasting your time with this?"

Okay, I try not to be too negative in my reviews, but this one was just…. not good. In most ways mediocre, and in a few ways truly bad.

The writing is full of cliched phrases, cultural stereotypes, and weird overexplanations. The pacing is really odd-- some plot elements are skimmed over, but the characters never seem to act with any real urgency. Cawdron often seems to be striving for something like Andy Weir’s detail-rich problem-solving sequences (no doubt the hope was fans of The Martian will be drawn in by the orange-tinted helmet glare visor and Martian landscape on the cover) but I read nothing to show he has any more command of the technicals than what could be obtained from Wikipedia. Some of the infodumps in the early parts of the book are mildly interesting, but the insistence on reusing that trick once we’re theoretically in the high-stakes endgame can be seriously off-putting.

No character in the story seems fully developed-- we get a few sentences of backstory and personality when they’re first introduced, and then everything they do is consistent with that introduction. Jianyu is relaxed and dependable. Michelle is emotional. Vlad is... Russian. (One character’s main personality trait seems to be just that he swears a lot, which is bizarrely treated as a big deal and constantly commented on, though he never gets worse than a “fuck”, rarely worse than a “damn”, and never more creative than a “what the hell?”) It’s hard to see any evidence of how anyone feels about or relates to each other, except what is relayed through bland exposition. Many of the characters and factions distrust each other at various points in the story, but never really to the extent of truly fighting, or sabotaging each other, or even ceasing communications.

In general, nothing packs an emotional punch. Moments that could be seriously creepy, tense, or atmospheric are quickly punctured and deflated by straightforward description and quick progress towards the next plot point. Most of the time our narrator, Liz, seems to neither have a handle on the situation nor really be out of her depth in an interesting way-- she just keeps trucking slipshod through the plot until we stumble into the conclusion.

Overall: the basic premise, including the big twist, are theoretically interesting, but the book pretty much entirely fails to execute on its potential.

Oh! One last thing. Please someone explain this to me-- why does being in retrograde mean they have longer communication delays with Earth? I thought that Mars being in retrograde coincided with opposition, when the two planets are relatively close... This may genuinely be something that I’m misunderstanding, so please let me know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Cawdron thinks that “opposition” means Earth is on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, not that Mars and the sun are on opposite sides of Earth. On the other hand, a character does say at one point that they’re fifty million miles from Earth, which is pretty close…. I don’t know, guys. I just don’t know.


Some quotes that really killed me:

“I’d like to, but I’m too polite-- too nice. I can’t swear like Harrison. When he swears, it sounds natural, almost as though cusswords are the norm; for me, it would be crude and forced.”

““Hit me with the spray,” Connor says. “I’ll hit you if you don’t do as you’re told,” Anna says sternly, playing on his words.”

"I wonder if the feed is still live. Live. What a concept. Life. Death. They're such abstract ideas, really."

“In a matter of a few minutes, I’ve pulled myself out of my gloom.” (Context: The gloom she was pulled out of was a result of a nuclear strike hitting her hometown on earth, several close friends dying, and a new threat on the rest of her fellow astronauts. She felt better because she thought about what soccer would be like in Mars gravity.)

“My chest heaves as a knot forms deep inside. A knife seems to plunge through my heart, twisting as it’s driven deeper.”
“He’s been dead for hours. I sob. I feel like a knife has been plunged into my heart.”
“As well meaning as he is, his words cut like a knife plunging into my heart.”
"My heart aches. Driving a knife into my waist and slowly twisting it around could not cause me any more pain than I feel."

A superb addition to HH's Silo

A great silo story. This take on the silo really brings forth some questions a lot of us die hard readers have asked. "Why hasn't anyone caught on about the cleaning?" A truly great addition to the silo stories.

Will be a follow up book? Because I enjoy this one but its fall short by means of a DeusEx Machina. And there was a good selections of themes that get touched by this history.

When a young girl named Dana is abandoned in a dusty part of Mexico, the local lawman is unclear what to do with her. Eventually he settles on placing her into the temporary care of a local woman, who in turn decides that a streetwise boy should take her to a nearby building used to house kids, all of which are without proper care for one reason or another. Dana, shaken by recent events and feeling alone, uses a soft toy in the form of a rabbit, Mister Fluffy Bunny, as a means of comfort and from which to draw strength. As the hours pass, Dana faces the harsh world the other children inhabit and discovers that the building may not be all it seems on the surface.

Peter Cawdron’s novelette creates an evocative sense of place. The Mexican desert setting is conveyed with the barest of description, skilfully implemented, giving the story a vivid atmosphere and cinematic immediacy. The main character, Dana, is just the sort of spunky little girl I like to see in fiction—courageous in overcoming her fears and facing a chaotic and threatening world with determination. Cawdron includes a brief afterward, in which he explains why, in his mind, it is important to include children in difficult situations, and not condescend to them in literature. This novelette is somewhat aimed at a lower age range, and some of the scenarios and themes included are ones of a threatening adult world. I agree wholeheartedly with Cawdron’s position here, and can imagine when younger being absorbed by the sense of jeopardy and adventure the story includes. Having said that, it’s a fine and compelling story generally, with sensitively drawn characters and a tight effective plot. If I have one complaint it is that the ending seemed a little rushed.

A tense, moving, and gritty story featuring a talismanic fluffy bunny.

A swing and a miss

Not a bad tale but the show don't tell rule is just ignored. It is impossible to sink into the narrative when it's wrapped up in all the explaining instead of telling.

This book started off with an interesting premise (abandoning a Mars expedition early in order to save a rival set of astronauts from another country), and continued to be interesting as the consequences of that are played out.

While this may not be the greatest SF novel of all time, it was a lot better than most, in that it is truly character driven yet has a lot of plot, much of it hard SF based. And at the end, it leaves the reader with questions to ponder--not exactly your typical SF fare.

This was a really interesting first-contact story, different from all the others I have read. I'm pretty tired of the first encounter stories that are about domineering, conquering aliens; or about peaceful, unselfish aliens; or telepathic aliens who somehow have brains that connect directly to ours despite having no common ancestor with us. (And I'm especially tired of the dumb stories about aliens falling in love with humans.) This story is something different.

Maybe even aliens can't go faster than the speed of light. (Most science fiction to the contrary, there really is an excellent chance we will never transcend the speed of light. Science fiction that tries to deal honestly with the limits of relatively often goes in very different directions from the bulk of science fiction.) So what do you do when your homeworld is many light-years away from the place you want to investigate? Well, you can't realistically go yourself. You can't invade, even if you wanted to. And--will your probe be able to continue working flawlessly after thousands of years en route? Furthermore, the target may well have changed drastically since you first scouted it.

And when your probe arrives at some distant life-bearing planet, what should it do? The probe can't study the whole planet--it's too big. Where on the planet would it go? What would it do when it got there? Peter Cawdron has given us a well-thought-through story of what aliens really might do, and how the people on earth who don't understand their goals might realistically react.

The title of the book is based on the old idea (popularized by von Daeniken) that maybe those weird passages in the prophet Ezekiel about wheels within wheels and the blue glowing throne of God and so on are just the attempt of a confused person to describe something he actually saw that we might describe very differently today. But (unlike some others who ran with this idea) this story does not mock the naivete of those ancient writers, or their modern followers; one of the most likable and honorable people in the story is the priest who points all this out.

Interesting story, but I have no idea what this was doing in Audible Escapes. This is not a romance at all, but rather a complex idea about first contact and also touching on disability and family.

Contrived story

Interesting idea, but the story was far too contrived. Only made it a third of the way through before I gave up in exasperation.