Review of Containment Breach
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Review of Containment Breach
[Following is a volunteer review of "Containment Breach" by Wm. A. Yandell.]
It finally happened: the Creatures bred by the sketchy labs aboard the Research Space Station have managed to break containment and have landed with a shuttle on Earth. Only a few metal plates separate them from wreaking havoc on the surface of the planet, a scenario that ends with one, only, possible result: the complete extinction of the human genre. With the Armageddon clock now ticking, General Tallen’s only hope to solve the crisis resides in Doctor Smithton and his team: if he manages to protect them from the shady troopers of Intelligence Director Bush, they may find a solution to control the spreading of the Creatures on the Station that will hopefully work on Earth too.
Containment Breach, by Wm. A. Yandell, possesses every trope of a typical sci-fi horror novel, from the hero scientists, forced to work alongside a shady military against an unstoppable foe, to the creepy Intelligence operators, faithful only to their mission and ready to turncoat the moment the situation requires so. Setting the story in a world where space travels and mind-reading powers are everyday realities contributes to create a rich and interesting environment which is guaranteed to captivate the reader. However, a faulty narration can very much undermine the premises of what could become a great story by squandering its potential, and this book is an example of that.
Writing a story set in space and in the future opens up a realm of possibilities: are spaceships gorgeous-looking and cozy vessels or uncomfortable and crooked metal prisons which can barely fly? What is spaceflight like? What does every room, door, and uniform look like? When questions like those are systematically left unanswered by the author, the whole premise of the story simply gets squandered, and that’s exactly the main problem I found in Containment Breach: there’s hardly any environmental description. Every location is pretty much interchangeable, indistinguishable from one another, and only serves as a container for the main characters, without adding any deep to the whole narrative. Architectural elements are only described if strictly necessary, leaving the reader with a sense of general vacuum that’s impossible to fill even with imagination. An example of this that I personally found frustrating was the description of the main objective of the mission, the Creatures ‘nest, which simply was “it’s gruesome and makes my skin crawl”.
While spatial narration is almost absent, dialogues are far too present. There’s hardly ever a scene in the book that doesn’t get interrupted by someone talking and starting an argument or a discussion; furthermore It doesn’t help that said arguments or discussions are far often pointless, consuming both the characters and the reader’s time. The shuttle sequence can be taken as an example in this regard, since most of its runtime is spent following the researchers and the military yelling at each other. After a while, I had the impression I was looking at a group of angry teenagers struggling to finish their school presentation in time for their delivery date. A few of the characters even incarnated some stereotypes of the case, like the sulking one who’s uncooperative because he was not chosen as the project leader, the one who does all the work, and the obstructionist one who gets a kick out of making the other members mad. Have I said that failure in completing the mission means the utter annihilation of human life on Earth?
Nevertheless, I’d still have considered giving the book a better rate than 1 out of 4 stars: the editing wasn’t perfect, as a few grammatical errors were still present, but it wasn’t so bad it undermined the overall reading experience; furthermore, as stated before, I really liked the setting and the story idea. However, there was an element which pretty much forced me to give this rating: Director Bush.
Despite being the man in charge of Earth Intelligence, Bush’s character is so incompetent that it manages to ruin the story all on his own. Every single action that he takes is totally nonsensical, uselessly cruel, or straight up detrimental to the mission, whether it is killing or antagonizing subordinates, withholding unimportant information fundamental to elaborate a successful strategy, or stirring up violence and conflicts just for fun, with no overall motivations. Since his involvement in most of those situations is evident, his steady presence as one of the mission leaders completely ruins the narrative and gets not only unbelievable but unbearable the longer the situation develops.
I personally wouldn’t recommend this book. Even if it possesses a few very nice ideas, it fails to put them together in a satisfying story. The book lacks explicitly religious contents or sex scenes; however, its violent connotations may make it unfit for a young audience.
******
Containment Breach
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
It finally happened: the Creatures bred by the sketchy labs aboard the Research Space Station have managed to break containment and have landed with a shuttle on Earth. Only a few metal plates separate them from wreaking havoc on the surface of the planet, a scenario that ends with one, only, possible result: the complete extinction of the human genre. With the Armageddon clock now ticking, General Tallen’s only hope to solve the crisis resides in Doctor Smithton and his team: if he manages to protect them from the shady troopers of Intelligence Director Bush, they may find a solution to control the spreading of the Creatures on the Station that will hopefully work on Earth too.
Containment Breach, by Wm. A. Yandell, possesses every trope of a typical sci-fi horror novel, from the hero scientists, forced to work alongside a shady military against an unstoppable foe, to the creepy Intelligence operators, faithful only to their mission and ready to turncoat the moment the situation requires so. Setting the story in a world where space travels and mind-reading powers are everyday realities contributes to create a rich and interesting environment which is guaranteed to captivate the reader. However, a faulty narration can very much undermine the premises of what could become a great story by squandering its potential, and this book is an example of that.
Writing a story set in space and in the future opens up a realm of possibilities: are spaceships gorgeous-looking and cozy vessels or uncomfortable and crooked metal prisons which can barely fly? What is spaceflight like? What does every room, door, and uniform look like? When questions like those are systematically left unanswered by the author, the whole premise of the story simply gets squandered, and that’s exactly the main problem I found in Containment Breach: there’s hardly any environmental description. Every location is pretty much interchangeable, indistinguishable from one another, and only serves as a container for the main characters, without adding any deep to the whole narrative. Architectural elements are only described if strictly necessary, leaving the reader with a sense of general vacuum that’s impossible to fill even with imagination. An example of this that I personally found frustrating was the description of the main objective of the mission, the Creatures ‘nest, which simply was “it’s gruesome and makes my skin crawl”.
While spatial narration is almost absent, dialogues are far too present. There’s hardly ever a scene in the book that doesn’t get interrupted by someone talking and starting an argument or a discussion; furthermore It doesn’t help that said arguments or discussions are far often pointless, consuming both the characters and the reader’s time. The shuttle sequence can be taken as an example in this regard, since most of its runtime is spent following the researchers and the military yelling at each other. After a while, I had the impression I was looking at a group of angry teenagers struggling to finish their school presentation in time for their delivery date. A few of the characters even incarnated some stereotypes of the case, like the sulking one who’s uncooperative because he was not chosen as the project leader, the one who does all the work, and the obstructionist one who gets a kick out of making the other members mad. Have I said that failure in completing the mission means the utter annihilation of human life on Earth?
Nevertheless, I’d still have considered giving the book a better rate than 1 out of 4 stars: the editing wasn’t perfect, as a few grammatical errors were still present, but it wasn’t so bad it undermined the overall reading experience; furthermore, as stated before, I really liked the setting and the story idea. However, there was an element which pretty much forced me to give this rating: Director Bush.
Despite being the man in charge of Earth Intelligence, Bush’s character is so incompetent that it manages to ruin the story all on his own. Every single action that he takes is totally nonsensical, uselessly cruel, or straight up detrimental to the mission, whether it is killing or antagonizing subordinates, withholding unimportant information fundamental to elaborate a successful strategy, or stirring up violence and conflicts just for fun, with no overall motivations. Since his involvement in most of those situations is evident, his steady presence as one of the mission leaders completely ruins the narrative and gets not only unbelievable but unbearable the longer the situation develops.
I personally wouldn’t recommend this book. Even if it possesses a few very nice ideas, it fails to put them together in a satisfying story. The book lacks explicitly religious contents or sex scenes; however, its violent connotations may make it unfit for a young audience.
******
Containment Breach
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Terms of Service by Craig W. Stanfill
