Well... This was interesting. Vivid and rich in ideas - possibly too many to cram into less than 190 pages.

The story was pretty good, the ideas were cool and it kept me reading. But the writing is clunky and the characterisation is shallow. There are 3 or 4 twists laid on the reader in the second half of the book which should really have you going: "NO WAY!", but instead had me going: "Huh. That's quite cool." - they had me acknowledging and appreciating the idea rather than blowing me away and turning my world upside down.

The whole thing reads like a summary of events rather than a story being told and you never feel truly involved. So, the problem is pretty much all in the writing. The ideas are all there and from what I can see this could have been an epic and gripping story, but King just didn't flesh this out enough and was very inconsistent with his character's personalities.

If you're like me and you read science fiction for the ideas then it's worth a read. This was Vincent King's first novel so I should probably cut him some slack. I read "Another End" (King's 3rd novel) a short while ago and that was pretty decent, though it suffered from different problems to this. I'm still pretty keen to read "Candy Man" since it's become a bit of a cult hit. Maybe that one will have done his ideas justice. ( )

Full of action and intrigue with a storyline that is easy to follow but strong in depth considering how slim this book is ( )

http://yet.org/2007/05/une_derniere_lueur.html ( )