Felix R. Savage

Lifeboat & Free fall - Felix R. Savage Earth last gambit series (four books)

Alright, to get the important caveat out of the way, this review applies only to the first two books in a series of four action-packed first contact techno thrillers. To this date, for better or worse I am quite ignorant of parts three and four.
There is plenty of action to go around - especially in the second book. The author got the measure of the action but what about the all important First Contact part? There, I found some situational catawompus that just didn’t seem straight.
The author seems to think that when confronted with a First Contact Scenario, high-ranking NASA officials, a hand-selected spaceship crew, the creme della creme of scientists - and all, would, for want of something better to say let loose a profusion of profanity in every other dialogue. The number of times the F&*(! word or variations of same used might go in the dozens, for a single book of the series that is.
I, for once, doubt this would be quite so.
Worse even, the author seems to think that extraterrestrials would, themselves, happily indulge in such language abuses.
Apart from satisfying inclinations to linguistic crudeness (amongst some readers), having from the mouthes of unsuspecting characters - Alien and human alike - streaming variations on the “four letter word”, Felix R. Savage doesn’t disappoint the infantile streak (within some of us) heaping rather generously on the reader close to every cliche that exists in science fiction. This includes but is obviously not restricted to :
Aliens are adorned with something tentacle-like - are bigger and stronger than us, - are war-like and altogether more or less just like us, yet with every little difference there is a contradictory emphasis is put on the Aliens being oh so incomprehensible and unforgivably at odds with us, - have incredibly unimaginative space-drives, - are masters of our human physiology to the extent that they can heal cancer or worse within minutes - last but not least and certainly maximally cliched (in this selective list) - space flight is boring so let’s have space sex.
I could end this review right here and now.
That, however, wouldn’t do justice to this quartet album of science fiction. After all, I managed to read two books in the series - a feat deserving further elicitation. Clearly, Mr. Savage must have done something right.
The premises and chain of events to follow are just intruiging enough to produce a plot keeping you reading over the lukewarm character interaction with their detached-from-reality disconsonance of expression and behavior. In fact, after completion of the book it was the satisfactory plot that had me reflect further on the author’s purpose.
I was even given to find a perhaps deep but yet undetected irony that could connect the out-of-place and out-of-line conduct of characters with the overall reasonable premises and scenario of the story that had somehow escaped me - unsuccessfully though.
Despite this perceived failure, I deem Felix R. Savage’s Earth’s Last Gambit a fairly readable product. In the end, if you are not put off as much as I am by the character interactions and are willing to focus on the technology and plot you might even enjoy this science fiction effort of quartet proportion.
… (mehr)