This is a book review of Event Horizon by Scott McElhaney. This book promised so much, but gave so little. That has to be the most negative start I’ve ever given to a book review, but it is with good reason.
I’ve read hundreds of science fiction books, and a healthy dollop of them have been related to time travel. You could say I know what constitutes a decent time travel book, so I’m not sure why I persevered so much with this book, when I realised there were plenty of holes in the story. There wasn’t an issue with grammar, the author can form lovely sentences. The problem was this book at times, just didn’t make sense, have depth or enough juicy science fiction details to make it believable.
This was my first ‘Christian’ science fiction read, but regardless of the religious ideals of the book, it just wasn’t a good science fiction book, which is a shame. The beginning of the story held so many possibilities, and I truly hope the author revisits his book, and gives it a major rewrite, to take this book to the next level, but it seemed at the end, which felt rushed, the book was just written to fit around a few Christian principles.
So after four paragraphs, I’d better tell you what the book is about! You follow a chap called Skylar Rains who time travels to the future, but accidentally makes a mistake and goes further than he original intended. Upon arriving he realises humanity is nowhere to be seen on Earth. What happened to humanity? What should Skylar do next? Sounds like a pretty kick-ass beginning, and it was, but alas for me that was the best part of the book.
After a while any seasoned science fiction reader will start questioning actions, details, parts of the story and then at that stage why continue to read?
I’m not going to lie, I found it difficult to write this review. As I mentioned Scott can produce lovely sentences, but this wasn’t a science fiction story, and if I was to try and think about it in terms of a religious story, it wasn’t that good either.
Without doubt this was a missed opportunity. I hope the story is revisited, reworked and given solid science fiction credentials.
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