Space jocks and good books
I finished reading Simon Haynes‘ "Hal Spacejock" today and I must say that it was a darn good read and something that I completely enjoyed reading, after a long time 🙂 What was interesting for me while reading the book was to note that I was hooked by the time I was barely a quarter of a way through the book and usually, it takes me much longer to be truly invested in a story. For instance, Terry Pratchett is my most favourite author and the last few books by PTerry took me at least till the middle of the book before I was really engaged in the story and could not put the book down.
Am I saying that Simon is better than PTerry? Not really. (Sorry Simon :p) But I’m saying that Simon’s style is very easy to read and to get into and that it is very different from that of Terry Pratchett – I enjoy books by both but I find that Simon’s is a much more easier page turner for me much more earlier on 🙂 But I’m not going to compare one author to another, that’s really not fair to either since each author has their own unique style and they bring completely different values and qualities to the table.
I know Simon. I have read his story of how he got published and I admire him for his determination, tenacity and courage 🙂 I wish I could call him friend but I don’t know him well enough and he doesn’t know me well enough. But he certainly is somebody that I wish was my friend. So, it’s a bit harder to review one of his books objectively. If it was somebody who didn’t know me and somebody who I didn’t know, I’d simply say what I thought. But when it is somebody I know, I always wonder whether I’m being too nice (or too harsh :p) simply because I know them.
So I shall not go into the nitty gritty stuff 🙂 There are things which annoy me about the story … OK, maybe "annoy" is too strong a word. It’s more like that there are some elements in the story which offends the nitpicky obsessive compulsive in me – the one who wants every t crossed (and for it to be exactly perpendicular) and every i dotted. For instance, I find the robots to be entirely too human and the humans a bit inconsistent at time. But what’s important is that while the inner-nitpicker complained bitter about these things I was still busily turning the pages. So I guess he was still doing something right 🙂
Basically, I enjoyed the story. It came together well and by the time I completed it, I wanted to get my hands on the sequel, "Hal Spacejock: Second Course" and continue reading. That’s all that an author can ask for, right? 🙂