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| Book Cover via Amazon.com |
I love action and adventure, specifically in space settings. I was a kid who loved Star Trek, and when "The Next Generation" came, I was a fan. I also remain a loyal comic book reader and fan, especially the intriguing plots in space that Marvel cooked up. Honestly, the true "Dark Phoenix Saga" is one of those nostalgic classics that moved me and developed me as a youth.
I tell you all of this prattling nonsense, because my friends, I was given this fantastic book by Craig Wainwright. It has all the fun that I enjoyed from X-Men in space, with the uniform wearing and structured dialogue of "Star Trek TNG." And yet, despite the similarities of some things, it is a unique take on space drama.
So, get your best mate, make sure you have something to avoid nuclear power plants, and whatever you do, don't upset lizard mutants. Let me take you on a review of Craig Wainwrights’ Novel, "The Last Titan."
Opinion
First out of the gate my friends, not so much of an opinion of mine as a fact. Craig Wainwright sent me a reviewer’s copy of his book. Isn’t it a beautiful book cover?
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| Try not to mind my manicure, I need a touch-up, but the picture of the book Craig sent me, done by me, Mrs. Y. |
I mean yeah it has a big ribbon down the middle that says that it's not for resale, but look at the rest of it. It's just stunning. I don't usually go on about book covers, but this one really is fun and got my attention.
Second, and also a fact, this is a review he asked for, and he stipulated before sending me the book, he wanted a very candid and honest discussion. So, for you Craig, and because I only do honest reviews, I shall do my best. To ensure this is an honest review, I went and purchased the Kindle version as well, so that I could do a side by side comparison to the physical copy and also critique the appearance of the words on the page.
The Last Titan takes the reader on a journey of things that start on Earth, but as time goes on one realizes they begin somewhere much further away.
I do not want to give spoilers, but this book has a lot of contrast in emotions, thoughts, logical things one can do vs. illogical and emotional things that happen instead. It also has a terrific amount of fighting and action scenes, and the fights are well done. But the main thing that I really took away from the book, love knows no bounds such as death or physical tangibility, and if you are fighting for the right things, you will triumph.
Let’s get into a few criticisms before I go into some positive things to note. The main criticism I have is the pacing, plot-driving, and exposition potatoes. This book has some very dry and very slow parts in it. The driest parts are the exposition potatoes, or info dumps, which are detailed and lengthy. They are so involved and complicated, even the characters do not stay awake for them. They happen all over the book and generally are about the exact same subject or thing in a repeated nature. The problem is that if even the characters are not awake for info dumps, it means the reader has to endure it not one time, but at least twice. The novel goes so far to explain this detailed, complicated culture so often, even when those first characters are not there, some new character comes around. When that character is in place, more exposition potatoes arrive on the history of the alien people come to different characters.
The point of an info dump is to give information to the reader, so they know what is going on, and generally, they should be brief and only enough to make the plot move forward. The characters need information to carry out the plot, but we the reader do not necessarily need to endure the history of a species over and over again. Very little of the information that comes in these discussions is new or relevant when toward the end of the The Last Titan, and shows up even in the third act.
The second critique for “The Last Titan” I found was wooden dialogue during in very human interactions. I am by no means referring to alien discussions, only the Earthlings who are interacting because I can suspend my disbelief and assume the space people speak with different tones. The issue I have comes from the fact that very few of the Earth people speak in usual natural ways via dialogue. They have dialogue that is robotic, it’s very unrealistic to me as a reader. It happens more than once to be notable. Now, there are parts of lively dialogue which is genuine, but I will talk more about that in the positive pieces.
My next critique has to do with the lack of unique treatment to cliché, old tropes and plot devices that are common and peppering the genre that comes from Sci-Fi like “The Last Titan.” I’m also going to rope in romance plot devices in this category, things that come from ‘one true love’ plots, and ‘my soul mate”. “The Last Titan” has a lot of situations which are discussed at length but end with: “They did this because… reasons” or, “That happened because…. Science!”
As an example of this, the main issue our protagonist suffers daily in his life on Earth, he’s too sexy for his shirt, so sexy it hurts. Literally this happened, he was so sexy and he produced something in his essence about being near the opposite sex, that he got beaten up for it. The book explains its part of him and his people, and this kind of thing is typical. And why is it he’s this sexy? “Because… science! Genetics!”
Despite the explanation of science added to it, this trope has been done so often from Vampires to Aliens, many times over, and rarely does it come out uniquely. I don’t feel the intended uniqueness was correctly executed to make it a fresh take. The book has so much potential to do more with these tools, but to me, it fell flat. If you are tired of this trope, you may find this book has some stumbling areas in it. This especially comes in with character descriptions that go on for paragraphs.
Now for some positive aspects. What Gary did not do, and I think he should be congratulated for, was Gary did not cram in a love triangle. Gary deserves credit for working with what he had and going so far to make sure there wasn’t any uncomfortable extra trope use and fluff that was not needed. So, even though I know I just went through a bunch of critiques, I think we should all be gladdened by the very positive things that happened in “The Last Titan”.
The parts of this book I found the most exciting and fun, were the ones on earth that had nothing to do with the protagonist or main antagonist. There is this AMAZING subplot going on involving an alien invasion on Earth, which I just want to roll around in and hug. This was where the dialogue became lively and fun. This was where the plot popped and sparkled and had real tension and emotion to it. I even love the fact that there was a funny bathroom scene where humans were hiding. No spoilers, but that was enjoyable to me.
It’s SO much fun to read this. I found that I went back through the book later, went just to those parts skipping to them, and I had such a good time laughing and enjoying the subplot with the main plot. I would love to have more of this. I love the secondary character’s reactions too. I loved that there was a minor tongue-in-cheek homage to Lovecraft in the book. I enjoyed so much what richness was given to the attention of the story in the form of morality and life lessons.
Also, I never EVER do this, but there is one line in the book that was toward the end, which was so good I want to share this, and have you all enjoy it as much as I do. This line is not suffering from the wooden dialogue issues, this line is pure gold.
“And if that time comes, I hope to give you indigestion.”
I grew up on some very golden dialogue lines in the 80’s and 90’s both in books and in film, and this one line is so delicious to me. I want it on a coffee mug, I want it on a shirt, and I need this to be shouted on the rooftops. Why? The scene it belongs in is fantastic! I can see in my mind’s eye everything that is going on, and this line is the culmination of struggle and defiance and the beginning of an intense fight.
Sincerely, Gary should sleep well knowing he can write some fantastic dialogue at times, and this was one of those times.
I also love that there was a lot of attention given to the dog and to some of the themes in this book. Honestly, the dog was so much fun and a perfect humanizing anchoring character to these superhumans. I loved that the villain had a crumbling part, and it was finalized. There were real consequences to what happened when it came to the real villain in the plot. It added that flare of realism and helped me to enjoy it.
Craig put a lot of work and attention into the descriptions, so while at times they may be too much with the critiques I stated, other times the plot and characters are fascinating and lovely. I loved the overall story, and how the threads came together in the end. It was nice.
And as far as my standard grammar, spelling, and approachability and how does it look on kindle, I did some extra work here for you guys. I purchased the book myself on Kindle, I tested fonts and settings, I tested the grammar, I even listened to it on Kindle with the text reader to be sure that things sounded good too. While that did confirm for me some of the flaws I mentioned above, it also solidified the fact the book is well written. This has been edited to perfection and suffers from none of the usual issues with publications like this. Craig did a great job, and whoever edited this book for Craig (if he didn’t do it himself) deserves a giant chocolate soufflé for their attention to detail and work.
Score
“The Last Titan” has earned itself a score of 81/100, which makes it a 4 star on Goodreads and Amazon. If you like fun space adventure stories and REALLY sexy characters (no joke these guys are apparently sex incarnate) than you should pick up a copy. I also would like to say, I am looking forward to whatever else Craig has in store because I think he is going places with his stories! I want to read where he goes on this journey of Authorship.
Thank you so much for reading my review! I will be taking a bit of a break for NaNoWriMo in November, but I promise, December has loads of great stories that I’m ready to tackle!
Have a wonderful day!
Mrs. Y
