Official Review: Original Zin by Matthew Brown
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- Abacus
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Official Review: Original Zin by Matthew Brown
Sit back and buckle up, avid readers! The action takes place in a crawl spaceship, a business venture for shipping cargo to 'zin (originating from humans) worlds in space.
Captain Jedreck Bracer owns the Meleera III crawler, which is a cargo ship. It was a business he inherited from his father and grandfather, and he enjoys it. He is a fair and reasonable man, but when war interferes, he is fearless and uncompromising and expects his crew's loyalty and expertise. He is philosophical about war, but when faced with aggression, he becomes a tiger protecting his ship and crew. Given his druthers, "all he wanted was to travel through space and do his job."
In this age of 'zins, there is a war going on in the Chello Ring – a 5-star spiral system. While delivering cargo to Old Ven Wistern, the Meleera takes onboard eighteen wealthy vagabond refugees. There is no trust in times of war, so Tayza, Bracer's second in command, watches the newcomers like a hawk in case anyone has plans to take-over or damage the ship.
At the end of the first crawl, the Meleera receives a distress call from the Thromburg crawler, which has soldiers aboard, but Captain Bracer would only take twenty-eight non-military personnel. Shortly after, a second distress call comes in from the Peritov an Aysson Sisters Invest ship and the personal transport of Countess Debeparre with thirty passengers.
One crawl ship in distress is an event, but two makes the hairs on Captain Bracer's neck stand up. He is honor-bound to help a boat in trouble but vows to take every precaution possible.
One point the author makes is that war is fought for similar reasons in an advanced world as it was long ago – biological prejudices, money, trade, knowledge, and religion. Original Zin has so much information and is a fast-moving story; reading it is a page-turning pleasure. But it also makes it challenging to review and produce a precise explanation of its appeal. So, imagine there are many different threads in this compelling and ingenious story; my review includes just some of the thought-provoking ideas and techniques applied by the author.
I liked the technique in chapter one, "Four Moments From History," used by the author to provide background information. One example is Miss Annerson's class, on a field trip, being used to explain 'zin evolution and development. Also, Matthew Brown provides us varied and funny examples of the "gravity effect" from different people's points of view. It's a fascinating concept, and eating chocolate was my favorite vicarious experience.
I appreciated the description of the evolution from long-ago humans to three races. The original humans became Orizins; long-ago-metal-based-robots have developed into Technozins, and the most recent biological development has produced Biozins who are more adaptable for space travel. They are proficient at war and good at colonization for future growth. Does one depend on the other?
I enjoyed the author's ability to create sci-fi names; the Meleera ends up with a hundred personnel on board, including crew and passengers. Matthew Brown names all the crew and many of the passengers. Some passengers also have one or two aliases. These names lend authenticity and enable the reader to believe in this futuristic world. But concentration is needed to follow so many different actors. The relationship between Captain Bracer and Tayza, his second in command, is beautifully developed. They know each other so well and can communicate in code words.
I believe the information in Original Zin could support more than one story. It is fertile ground for innovation, excellent writing, and presentation techniques.
I rate Original Zin 4 out of 4 stars for originality, authenticity, and intriguing techniques. I do not rate it 3 out of 4 stars because the writing moves the story forward with every word. I found no errors and nothing that I disliked. Some readers may feel that there were too many facts not directly connected to the storyline, but I thought it was thrilling to read, and it didn't bother me. There are gory fight scenes that some readers may not appreciate.
I recommend it to readers who like sci-fi, originality, mystery, thrills, and thought-provoking ideas.
******
Original Zin
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- sirbobthewise
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This is a very good method to tell readers about the fictional world. The book itself seems interesting too.
Thank you for great review.
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I spent some time wondering about the method of choosing names. I think the author picked ordinary names from a list the added or subtracted a letter and made them just different enough. Thanks for your comments.sirbobthewise wrote: ↑28 May 2020, 05:01 Sounds like a lot of world-building happening here! All of the different threads could be a little bit difficult to manage, but in your review, you mentioned that it’s a page-turner, so it seems like it didn’t hold you back from enjoying it. I understand the difficulty of having to review a book that has so much depth to it, but you did a good job of giving your summary and list of impressions. I also LOVE it when an author has a good naming sense, so that’s definitely a bonus in my book. Great job!
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Oh! That's really clever and would make sense. That way the names would still mostly follow the rules that we typically employ in naming, and there would still be a sense of familiarity. Yet, they could be different enough that they would have a more unique feel. How interesting. Thanks for the new thought!Abacus wrote: ↑28 May 2020, 09:20I spent some time wondering about the method of choosing names. I think the author picked ordinary names from a list the added or subtracted a letter and made them just different enough. Thanks for your comments.sirbobthewise wrote: ↑28 May 2020, 05:01 Sounds like a lot of world-building happening here! All of the different threads could be a little bit difficult to manage, but in your review, you mentioned that it’s a page-turner, so it seems like it didn’t hold you back from enjoying it. I understand the difficulty of having to review a book that has so much depth to it, but you did a good job of giving your summary and list of impressions. I also LOVE it when an author has a good naming sense, so that’s definitely a bonus in my book. Great job!
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