Review::The Object: Book One (Object Series) by Winston Emerson

The Object: Book One by Winston Emerson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Object: Book One (Object Series) by Winston Emerson


I really enjoyed this novel although I'm not that attached the the horror mayhem type of stories like this. This draws some similarities to H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, which again is a good novel just not my favorite. This novel takes place in Louisville instead of England and also has some similarities to the novel series The Beginning of the End by Michael Edward.

Winston Emerson creates some strong and believable characters and the writing is similar to that high literary style where the characters are drawn out well with all the flaws and foibles attached. We could have used a better balance of characters to offset the horror that was soon to ensue. There are several characters that stand out as potential for the reader to sympathize with, but a majority are pretty flawed and broken and though there might be opportunities to draw sympathy most of those characters become repulsive. There are a few of the gritty that redeem themselves, but in this type of fiction many of these characters die just as or just before you get to really know them.

There's a sense of plot somewhere in the background but because this has been published in the manner that it has been written within a blog-sphere the plot is mostly hanging rather loosely and this would be best read in its entirety, which at the moment is going to be difficult because not much more has been written and published yet.

I would give this five stars, but there are road-bumps that I couldn't get past. There are two characters that I would chose as the outstanding protagonists and they would be Lillia and Hayden. But those two characters take a dramatic turn in their life that may or may not have changed them entirely into unknown and unknowable characters. Because things are left pretty much hanging as in not explained and these are the two characters a reader might hang onto it becomes a sticky point among several sticky points.

The next sticky point is the mystery about the object. From front to back the reader doesn't get much of an advance in understanding to the tune that it's still not certain whether it has good or bad or indifference in its intent.

The next sticky point is the invasion of the body snatchers nature that the story is taking and the fact that it has the appearance that there is a contest or animosity between the snatched and it's difficult to tell if this is a side effect to the personality of the abducted body or if there are two different types of aliens or if in fact it's some sort of game or field exercise.

Once again as with this type of novel; the many well drawn characters are slowly being killed off as they meet together for some unknown purpose. It would almost seem at this point that most of the deaths are not directly perpetrated by the aliens unless we count in the panic and fear much the same as was caused by the Orson Wells radio broadcast. (Again many similarities here.)

This is a good story for the gritty characterizations and the portrayal of people caught in specific self destructive social structures within the big city. It has a good number of shock factors built into the narrative.

I think it would be best served whole though rather than piecemeal with the cliffhanger. Perhaps as the series plays out all of the mysteries that are brought before the reader will be answered eventually.

Of course the way that it is played out here might well be correct for the Genre it is trying to target.


J.L. Dobias



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