Official Review: Dunes of Fire by AJ Goodrum
Posted: 18 Dec 2019, 07:03
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Dunes of Fire" by AJ Goodrum.]
Dunes of Fire by AJ Goodrum is a standalone novel and is part historical, part fantasy and part romance. This work of fiction is a story of Egypt and how teachers from an alien world came through a portal of the sun to show humans how to build the pyramids as well as impart a great gift to them.
King Arumet has been chosen to meet the teachers and, spurred on by the idea of great rewards, he is determined to welcome them to Earth as lavishly as possible. The teachers then explain that they will need a select group of people to work with so that they can share certain bits of knowledge with them able to be passed down through generations. This would ensure that their lands were not engulfed by a desert to the west. The aliens then vanish, leaving behind statues, pyramids and new substances able to be used for weaponry.
Twelve thousand years later, Johnny Cortez’s father has gone missing. When Johnny gets the news, he dashes off to the dig in Egypt that his father, Manny, has been working at. Manny was obsessed with finding evidence of the mythical teachers. There he meets the site dig manager, Mr Widdal. Straight away Johnny gets a bad feeling about him, and his instincts are spot on. Mr Widdal has been trying to sell off artefacts from the site and seems intent on finding a hidden treasure. Could Mr Widdal have something to do with his father’s disappearance? Johnny meets Ani, the daughter of one of the managers on the site, and is instantly smitten. But will his playboy ways interfere with him possibly finding his soul mate? And could the package his father sent to him just before he disappeared with instructions not to open it have anything to do with his disappearance? There is definitely something more to this than meets the eye...
It always piques my interest when the blurb of the book I’m reviewing boldly states on Amazon that ‘It will become a best seller.’ This always leads me to hope that I’m in for a gripping read that has been well edited. This was, unfortunately, not the case here. Most of the story is described in the published synopsis, so none of what follows is a spoiler. The story starts out with alien beings arriving in Egypt and telling the king they will share a great gift with humans. The book then swiftly moves to Dr Manny Cortez finding something at the dig and going missing. For approximately 130 pages of the book, Johnny has gone to Egypt to look for his father but has bedded woman after woman. The actual climax to the story comes in the third last chapter, and it is so rushed it leaves you with a lot more questions than answers. The gift is never fully explained either, so the healing powers that the aliens say they will impart right at the beginning of the book are never expanded on and only mentioned once briefly again.
The writing style started off well, but soon mistake after mistake crept in. Right in the prologue is a POV jump and these continue throughout the book. Incorrect words are continuously used like craving instead of carving, suave instead of salve and water instead of waiter. Dialogue and actions tags are mixed up and random capitals appear where they shouldn’t be. In fact, a YouTube URL arbitrarily appears in a line for no reason whatsoever. At one stage Johnny describes a character as having blue eyes and then as she leaves the bar he says he will miss her green eyes. Then her hair changes from blonde to black. The sex scenes also made me cringe. From phrases like ‘love canal’ and ‘perpendicular movement like a jackhammer on a sidewalk’ to one that had me perplexed: ‘Johnny could feel her pelvis contracting around his lower intestines.’ How on Earth? There was awkward phrasing like: ‘How could he do this, and he is supposed to find a killer’ or ‘The animal’s teeth were ominous as it opened further as it stocked her.’ At one stage Johnny even gave a man a thousand-pound note, and as much as I’ve tried to research it, no thousand-pound note in any currency was used in Egypt at that time.
This was all such a pity as the base idea for the story was good. Unfortunately, the wrong parts of the story were focused on. Much more could have been looked at about the aliens, their message and its impact on humans instead of Johnny running around with a bunch of women. Even the villain seemed to go from evil mastermind to idiotic fanatic. I didn’t connect with any of the characters and I felt Ani’s story could have been fleshed out a lot more. Johnny just had women fall for him as soon as they met him and I never felt anything of substance come from him either.
Dunes of Fire confused me and due to the poor editing and the need to make the book more cohesive I took off two stars. I thus rate Dunes of Fire 2 out of 4 stars. If the author expanded on the ideas a little more, I’m sure readers who are interested in historical fiction with a bit of time travel thrown in would really enjoy it.
******
Dunes of Fire
View: on Bookshelves
Dunes of Fire by AJ Goodrum is a standalone novel and is part historical, part fantasy and part romance. This work of fiction is a story of Egypt and how teachers from an alien world came through a portal of the sun to show humans how to build the pyramids as well as impart a great gift to them.
King Arumet has been chosen to meet the teachers and, spurred on by the idea of great rewards, he is determined to welcome them to Earth as lavishly as possible. The teachers then explain that they will need a select group of people to work with so that they can share certain bits of knowledge with them able to be passed down through generations. This would ensure that their lands were not engulfed by a desert to the west. The aliens then vanish, leaving behind statues, pyramids and new substances able to be used for weaponry.
Twelve thousand years later, Johnny Cortez’s father has gone missing. When Johnny gets the news, he dashes off to the dig in Egypt that his father, Manny, has been working at. Manny was obsessed with finding evidence of the mythical teachers. There he meets the site dig manager, Mr Widdal. Straight away Johnny gets a bad feeling about him, and his instincts are spot on. Mr Widdal has been trying to sell off artefacts from the site and seems intent on finding a hidden treasure. Could Mr Widdal have something to do with his father’s disappearance? Johnny meets Ani, the daughter of one of the managers on the site, and is instantly smitten. But will his playboy ways interfere with him possibly finding his soul mate? And could the package his father sent to him just before he disappeared with instructions not to open it have anything to do with his disappearance? There is definitely something more to this than meets the eye...
It always piques my interest when the blurb of the book I’m reviewing boldly states on Amazon that ‘It will become a best seller.’ This always leads me to hope that I’m in for a gripping read that has been well edited. This was, unfortunately, not the case here. Most of the story is described in the published synopsis, so none of what follows is a spoiler. The story starts out with alien beings arriving in Egypt and telling the king they will share a great gift with humans. The book then swiftly moves to Dr Manny Cortez finding something at the dig and going missing. For approximately 130 pages of the book, Johnny has gone to Egypt to look for his father but has bedded woman after woman. The actual climax to the story comes in the third last chapter, and it is so rushed it leaves you with a lot more questions than answers. The gift is never fully explained either, so the healing powers that the aliens say they will impart right at the beginning of the book are never expanded on and only mentioned once briefly again.
The writing style started off well, but soon mistake after mistake crept in. Right in the prologue is a POV jump and these continue throughout the book. Incorrect words are continuously used like craving instead of carving, suave instead of salve and water instead of waiter. Dialogue and actions tags are mixed up and random capitals appear where they shouldn’t be. In fact, a YouTube URL arbitrarily appears in a line for no reason whatsoever. At one stage Johnny describes a character as having blue eyes and then as she leaves the bar he says he will miss her green eyes. Then her hair changes from blonde to black. The sex scenes also made me cringe. From phrases like ‘love canal’ and ‘perpendicular movement like a jackhammer on a sidewalk’ to one that had me perplexed: ‘Johnny could feel her pelvis contracting around his lower intestines.’ How on Earth? There was awkward phrasing like: ‘How could he do this, and he is supposed to find a killer’ or ‘The animal’s teeth were ominous as it opened further as it stocked her.’ At one stage Johnny even gave a man a thousand-pound note, and as much as I’ve tried to research it, no thousand-pound note in any currency was used in Egypt at that time.
This was all such a pity as the base idea for the story was good. Unfortunately, the wrong parts of the story were focused on. Much more could have been looked at about the aliens, their message and its impact on humans instead of Johnny running around with a bunch of women. Even the villain seemed to go from evil mastermind to idiotic fanatic. I didn’t connect with any of the characters and I felt Ani’s story could have been fleshed out a lot more. Johnny just had women fall for him as soon as they met him and I never felt anything of substance come from him either.
Dunes of Fire confused me and due to the poor editing and the need to make the book more cohesive I took off two stars. I thus rate Dunes of Fire 2 out of 4 stars. If the author expanded on the ideas a little more, I’m sure readers who are interested in historical fiction with a bit of time travel thrown in would really enjoy it.
******
Dunes of Fire
View: on Bookshelves