Official Review: Anstractor by Greg Dragon

[MrEmDash]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Anstractor" by Greg Dragon.]

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Anstractor Vastalia by Greg Dragon was definitely a really cool book to read. It seemed like a typical sci-fi kind of book, but there was a lot more depth to it than the typical book which made me enjoy it greatly.

Anstractor Vastalia follows the life of Rafian VCA from his childhood of being an orphan, to being adopted by a military man and trained in the ways of the military. Under his new "parent", he quickly learns the skills necessary to become a cadet. After a year he successfully joins the ranks of cadets and trains. Since he got a late start in training, he was set behind in classes. However, his determination to succeed drove him to do better and he climbed through the ranks at a meteoric pace. He quickly became an officer and established himself as one of the most respected marines. Throughout this time he was having love issues between two girls. Kim, a sex goddess (basically she was really good at sex), and Vani, a pretty, somewhat spoiled, but loving girl. After Kim became pregnant and it was revealed that she cheated on Rafian, he settles with Vani and leads a happy life.

However, that life becomes a bit less happy as Vani and Rafian have their spats. This escalates until the pressure of the test to become a pilot alongside Vani's constant nagging drove Rafian to break up with her. He soon finds an officer named Camille who is just as prestigious as himself, as beautiful as Vani, but was tender and caring. With her, Rafian rose through the ranks. This rising through the ranks was noticed by the starfighter spy network in Virulia and he, alongside Camille, was invited into their ranks. This is a honor that cannot be refused, so they agree to join the organization.

They soon realize this is a mistake as the organization is not what it seems to be. It is revealed that the superspies have powers beyond normal people. They are able to jump between dimensions and go into wards previously unknown and be able to learn abilities from these other dimensions and carry them back. Ultimately the goal is to preserve the peace of the universe, but the leader has become power hungry and vicious. His way of training spies included forcing them to engage in sex with a different person multiple times a week but develop no attachments. He tortured them psychologically and when on their first missions, wiped their memories. Rafian is sent to a different world where he has no previous memories. He forms a rebel group to destroy the Filitians. But Rafian is fighting many battles. In his battle with he Filitians he takes a wife. When he comes back he not only fights the people who occupy his ancestors home Vestalia, but fights the organization that nearly destroyed him as well as fights the moral commitments he has to his wife, Marian, and his previous partner Camille.

I really liked this book. It was much more complex than your average sci-fi book, which I really enjoyed. The characters were also extremely well developed, the different races were original, actions sequences were written well and descriptions were vivid. The relationships between characters were believable, well thought out and well executed. The plot was pretty solid overall and there weren't many spelling or grammatical errors that I saw. Overall incredibly solid book.

However, there was one major problem that REALLY destracted from the book. The dialogue. In general the dialogue is god-awful. And it's really odd because the rest of the writing is really quite good. It honestly sounded like a different person wrote the dialogue than who wrote the rest of the book. The dialogue in general is very formal, but it doesn't work. It's stilted, awkward, and clunky and doesn't fit the characters. Many of the characters are really badass but talk in ways that are just annoying. For example, the author doesn't seem to use contractions. It's always "I am" or "You will", etc. Changing that would make the dialogue much less formal and seem smoother overall. For a specific example, there is a part where Rafian corners three bullies who pick on another cadet. After confronting them one of the bullies yells "Let's just kick his ass and lock him up for a week". Rafian's response is:

"Thank you, Mav. You will make me feel no conscience in doing this...".

To me it just doesn't work. Rafian is barely a teenager and in the process of his training is become a badass. Yet this line just sounds stilted and corny to me. This is just one of many examples and is a major crutch of the book. There are also some smaller problems with descriptions such as "said silently", which was used multiple times. But that is small compared to the overall issue of the dialogue. Once of the author cleans up the dialogue I would highly recommend this book. But because of major issues with the dialogue I'm going to give this book a 3 out of 4 stars. I really want to give it a 4 though.

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[sahmoun2778]

Thanks for a well written and thorough review.

[Acwoolet]

Great review! I'm not usually a fan of sci-fi but this one doesn't sound like the typical novel. I'm might have to add this one to my reading list.

[Cee-Jay Aurinko]

I'm glad I read your review MrEmDash. The book sounds very interesting and I agree that the example you used is too corny for someone who is supposedly a badass. I hope the author plans to look into it as dialog is pretty much one of the most important parts of good fiction.