“Dusk to Dust” by Adrian Felder is not my usual post-apocalyptic thrill ride, but it has just enough war-torn sci-fi goodness in it for me to jump in and review on the Crumble Blog. If you’re interested in reading a novel with plenty of action, guns and space fights, read on.
My review summary
Pros: Interesting universe with plenty of cool sci-fi action
Cons: Pacing of the story means the second half is harder to get excited about
Who should read this? Anyone who wants an entertaining action sci-fi read but isn’t a total book snob.
OK, now the full thing.
What is “Dusk to Dust”?
I was recently approached by author Adrian Felder to review his aforementioned novel after I released my a piece on “Man of War”, another space-faring action book. Though this novel is fairly outside my post-apocalyptic realm, the chance to see what a new writer had come up with was an interesting one, so I dove on in. Plus, it is sort-of set after a cataclysmic war, so you can just about justify it.
The book follows ex-US Marine David Carpenter (laid off when the Marine Corp was disbanded) who, along with his old soldier buddy and now long-time friend Alana, has turned to a life of smuggling to make ends meet. This leads the duo to take a job for a huge corporate known as Windham, which requires their unique talents for a very special, and top-secret, operation.
Of course, our other main character – Staff Seargent Letsego of the UN Peacekeepers – has something to say about that (and it’s mostly not nice things). Without spoiling too much, Carpenter attempts the job, things go quite apocalyptically south, and story ensues. By the end of the book, we’ve had spy-thriller chase scenes, horroresque action and even some large-scale space battles.
My initial impressions
If I could describe my initial impression in a series of sound effects explained poorly over web-based text, it would be thus:
Hmm.
Ah.
Oh!
Mmm…
Mmm!
This book has quite a lot to it. The story actually feels like about three or four smaller novels banged together into a single epic, which has both upsides and downsides that we’ll get to in this review. Overall, I can say I’m feeling positive about the experience having read it. “Dusk to Dust” has a lot of entertaining space military action that I love, blending time-tested sci-fi tropes with its own unique flavour.
If you’re like me, you’ll likely enjoy “Dusk to Dust” and feel OK about spending the small amount of money it’s up on Kindle for. You could pay a whole lot more for a whole lot less, that’s for sure.
SPOILER ALERT. As we go through some specifics, I’ll be weaving in and out of spoilers. Bewaaaaaaarreee!
Pros
Action-packed story with lots of entertaining sci-fi goodness to keep you entertained throughout most of the book. Felder has done a great job of the military feel to the Peacekeeper sections of this story, particularly in the final arc.
The science fiction itself is also a nice blend of both fantasy and probability. ‘Giant space corporations’ may be a little cliche, but utilising real-world government organisations to base this future society on lends a reality to an otherwise fictional world. Plus, let’s face it, ‘giant space corporations’ is probably what we’re in for in reality, too…
Spaceship FTL is taken more seriously than, say, “Star Trek”, in that there are real-world consequences to going from zero to HolyShitFast in just a few seconds. Namely, all your organs go squish unless you are strapped into special chairs.
As for the characters, they are all acceptable. It was nice to see a male/female relationship that didn’t totally hinge around a sexual romance, though we do find out later in the story that the guy was totally falling for the girl. The arc of Letsego is probably the most interesting in terms of development – he goes from being a fairly stereotypical copper at the start to one of the lead action heroes by the end. If you ask me, he’s the best character because of it.
Cons
Like I said, this is akin to a few novels shot at FTL speeds into each other. It made the pacing quite hard to stay with at times. Just when you feel like you’re about to climax, you look down to see that there is still a good 50-60% of the novel to go. Then it happens again, and again. The story Return of the Kings you a bit, and although there is plenty of ups and downs in the action to keep you interested and give you time to breathe, this inability to fully cum means one quite important thing: The later parts of the story lose emphasis.
The final few arcs of this book are some of the biggest, but because of the ups and downs leading to them, you kinda lose something. The bigness of these finale events don’t seem so big, because the characters who we are following and who we care about have already been through so much. To keep making this review weirdly sexual, the book shoots its load early but you gotta keep fucking.
That’s the big issue. The rest is nit-picking.
Some of the language does mean you can tell it was created by a more inexperienced author – overly long exposition where it needn’t necessarily be, character emotions seeming robotic, but you know what? YOLO. It’s still an entertaining read, and for its price point, what more do you need?
Go pick it up.