Book Review Lunara: Seth and Chloe by Wyatt Davenport

Lunara: Seth and Chloe, well, I had high hopes for this book, the first in a series but, it left me disappointed almost from start of chapter 1 to the finish at chapter 41.  I say almost from start to.. but that wasn't true.  There was something about the book as I read that I just couldn't put my finger on and it wasn't until about the fourth or fifth chapter that I suddenly realised what it was that was making it difficult, it was the writing style!

Did you know that in 1820 Sir Walter Scott wrote one of his grandest opus's, Ivanhoe and that it was over 179,000 words in length?  He of course had an excuse for being so verbose, as that is how the English language was back in those days, it was exact.  Time moved on as did language and if we all spoke perfect, grammatically correct English it would take most of our day just to have a simple conversation.  It's the same with written English, if it is written in precise grammatical sentences it becomes unwieldy, a burden and a chore to the reader....   Now there are papers, legal documents, written laws passed by government, etc.,  that I suppose require to be grandiose in their language, although I fail to see why, but they are. But, a modern book or novel, no, not unless of course it is a specific text book for learning and is required in that format. But a work of fiction no, it doesn't do it for me.  Just as Ivanhoe isn't doing it for some in today's modern world and so it is being abridged down to 80,000 words to make it more readable for today's consumer, link here.

Lunara_ Seth and Chloe has been written in the same fashion as Ivanhoe.  The grammar is so precise with no contractions, or very few, that I could see and while the story had merit it just made the whole book rather tedious.  It made the characters feel contrived, which of course they are, by the author. But it made me want to read and then re-read with contractions to make it more real, which in the end it didn't, or as the author would say 'it did not'  It may seem like nit picking, but that's how I felt throughout.

Then there were parts of the story that just didn't work.  The two main characters, Seth and Chloe had survived terrible deprivations on Mars having seen their families brutally murdered by 'raiders' and then having been left to defend themselves by the authorities before escaping to Lunara, he with a heart full of hate for his former home and she with a heart full of forgiveness, but both endowed with special mystical powers, which in the end was for him to be a little bit stronger and able to shrug of illness and her apparently endowed with mind reading abilities! Throw into this political alliances that are being undermined, with man's ability to be the asinine idiots with the usual viciousness that only homo sapiens can possess and you should have a good book.  But then it is spoiled by silly little segues of unrequited love, (and don't misunderstand me here I am all for a bit of romance whether it is on solid ground or up in space) but the cry of the unrequited one here comes from another central character Gwen, to Seth completely out of left field, and when I say left field I mean a completely different field on a completely different continent, where for the previous 10 or so chapters there had been no indication of interest by her towards Seth who was attached to Chloe, Gwen's best friend, so that didn't work for me.

The crew of the meteor mining starship Protector are collecting meteors when Lunara colony is attacked. Earth is an uninhabited lump of rock with colonies on the Moon and Mars. Protector escapes to Mars to warn them and to rally a response.

Then Captain Eamon Dalton's return to Mars and the 'arms' of his lost love, just didn't work at all.....

Seth and Chloe's continued trials and tribulations as they fought the elements on Mars.... nope

Seth' who has known Chloe since childhood and more than anyone is all knowing of her 'abilities', can't see past his hatred of all things Mars even when she is telling him that the course of action he is taking is 'wrong'  .... nope.  And then he does a complete volte face and suddenly trusts one group of the two controlling factions on Mars..... we've just spent 30 chapters reading how he would never trust anyone on that planet ..... Nope

The final sequence of the book where Lunara is re-attacked by Capt Dalton and a force he has been given by the daughter of one of the two controlling government ministers, is the best part of the book but really no amelioration to what went before.

It could have been so much better, which is a pity.......... As I was really looking forward to it since discovering SyFy as a genre.


Ratings:
Editing for Kindle: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 1 out of 5 
Plot: 3 out of 5
Overall Rating: 2 out of 5