Official Review: Moonbeams by B J Morgan

[MatthewAlexander]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Moonbeams" by B J Morgan.]

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Moonbeams by B. J. Morgan is a science fiction book about two human-occupied planets in one galaxy, each unaware of the other. Living on the planet Volega is Jan Oremus, a man who created a three phase plan to map the entire galaxy, prevent intelligent life forms to live on other planets, and then begin Volega’s colonization process. The second planet, Halcyon, is occupied by Paul Trevell. Paul and Jan’s stories connect through ‘alien attacks’, or, rather, phase two of Jan’s plan, that begin wiping out people of Paul’s race who have colonized on different planets. Paul’s story goes through figuring out what is causing the attacks and putting a stop to it along with his ex-wife, Brenda, whereas Jan’s takes many different turns throughout the story.

My overall thought throughout this book was, ‘wait…what?’ I had a hard time keeping up with the story for a couple of reasons. One of them being that the plot felt like nothing but a hodgepodge of ideas to me. There seemed to be too many subplots that didn't come together right. Not only that, but the writing was very wordy. Besides the fact that there was a lot of science talk that I couldn't keep up with, there were too many words in general.

I might have been able to look past that, though, if the writing itself hadn't annoyed me so much. Overall, the writing was very dry and rambling. The dialogue between characters seemed very forced and unrealistic. The dialogue that bothered me most would have to be the dialogue between the couple of the story. The ‘romance’ was enough to make me shudder. This book had a few good ideas, but none of those ideas were executed very well.

Yet another thing that I could not look past was the grammar and spelling in this book. I came across several grammar and spelling mistakes. I marked down ten of them in my notes and more than that with some repeats. One of my most noted is perhaps stylistic, but it is that commas were not used where they could, or should, have been. For example, “Good to see you too Aramena” and “…all in good time Jan”, should both have commas in them, before Aramena and before Jan. As I said, though, that may just be stylistic. A few spelling mistakes I noted that are indeed not stylistic are “aall”, as in all,” and “whoes”, as in whose. I don’t understand how a book could be published with so many mistakes. They are distracting and make the author themselves look bad.

Over all, I would give Moonbeams 1 out of 4 stars. I was going to give it the benefit of the doubt and award it two stars, but I simply don’t believe it deserves it. I was going to give it two because I thought that maybe a reader into science fiction might enjoy the book more than I, but I couldn't. The spelling mistakes and unnecessary words made a second star seem too kind. To be fair, though, Moonbeams does have potential and with proper revisions could be brought up to a second or third star rating.

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[Norma_Rudolph]

Thanks for the review. It's good to get a heads up and not have to waste time on a poorly written book. I hate it when grammar issues take me out of the story. Perhaps it was self published and the author didn't want to spend money on an editor? In any case I would like to see reviews from others who read sci-fi and see if maybe they scored it higher? Or not . . .

[BJMorgan]

The author replies:

Oh dear, I've got far too much wrong and yes it was self published after nagging away in my head for over 30 years so I'm not sorry I did it, but disappointed I couldn't make a better job even though I've have good reviews (not all in print) from many who have read it. Will there be a revision? Probably not - it'll stand as is but perhaps the sequel will be a better job if it ever sees the light of day. Writing isn't my primary occupation (guess it shows) and the day job means there's precious time left over for it unfortunately. As for the spelling mistakes ... missed a few, darn it...

FWIW 'wordiness' was picked up by another reviewer so all I can say is I'll try better next time