The book starts out with two separate incidents setting up the premise that the U.S. government is in possession of pieces of alien technology that they refer to as green boxes. Then it jumps a few more times setting up the backstory of two of our main characters which includes both forced colonization and a white savior complex. The protagonist is Robuku Makolu aka Robby McKoy whose nickname is just the beginning of attempts to white wash the native Tanawan of Tidal Island. Then you have Thomas David McClure who is a supposedly a genius but honestly just comes off as an average white male sociopath.
There is a third boy named Sammy who dies early on in a poorly planned (or maybe purposeful) swim to “prove they are men”.
The rest of the book mostly follows Robby, who is trying to run Remote Island Ministries or RIM in the wake of his father’s passing. Robby feels inadequate and like a complete failure as RIM is not doing well financially. As we move a long Robby meets back up with Tom for the first time in over 30 years. Tom basically ends up committing treason and honestly for as serious as this crime is, the government seems to barely care. They send one agent named Conrad Stafford to track Tom down and he doesn’t do a great job.
A lot of the book then revolves around Tom slowly feeding Robby information about a planet called Neplar. Though the government admits Neplar exists, Tom claims he cracked their language from the green boxes. Established early in the book, Tom is something of a savant in languages. He even gives the Tanawan the first written version of their own language. This is one of the first instances where the book is problematic but not the last. The author writes in a way that almost seems like he understands why white people coming into an island, treating the natives like ignorant children, and buying up their land for a resort is majorly problematic but then just says but it was good for them and moves along.
I truly wanted to like this book. I love aliens, government secrets, and mysteries which are all things this novel promises but just doesn’t quite deliver. Between the underdeveloped and quite honestly shoehorned in religious parables, it was kind of a chore to finish. There were chapters were I felt like awesome the intrigue is about to pick up, but then we’d be right back to this weird religious alien text. The novel felt like two books shoved into one with neither being quite fully developed.
The religion of Neplar almost seemed like an underdeveloped parody of modern Christianity. And the fact that you’re never quite sure if Tom is just completely making everything up could’ve worked well in the story if the author hadn’t devoted so much of the just over 200 page novel to religious dogma that doesn’t truly make a lot of sense.
In the end so much of the mysteries of the book are just lightly implied rather than resolved which left the final pages rather unsatisfying. Robby isn’t a great protagonist as at times he seems desperate to save RIM and make his dad proud while other times he seems insane and ready to jump off a cliff for
Tom. It makes it hard to root for him as there is no clear message as to what would actually be a happy ending for him. The novel has a great deal of potential and you can tell that author has a vivid imagination which could lead to some interesting stories. However, the reader is left feeling like the book was simply a method to shove some weird sense of faith and belief system down their throats. Between that and the subconscious racism, this book only gets a 2 out of 5 stars.
By Scott Wallace
Review by Brittany A.
*Full disclosure I did receive a free copy of this book for the purpose of reviewing.
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- I'm Al Mega the CEO of Comic Crusaders, CEO of the Undercover Capes Podcast Network, CEO of Geekery Magazine & Owner of Splintered Press (coming soon). I'm a fan of comics, cartoons and old school video games. Make sure to check out our podcasts/vidcasts and more!
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