Official Review: The Sea of Iden by A.A. Smith

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David Nash
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Official Review: The Sea of Iden by A.A. Smith

Post by David Nash »

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Sea of Iden" by A.A. Smith.]
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2 out of 4 stars
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I’ve just completed reading The Sea of Iden, the third novel in the Constellation Series by A.A. Smith. The science fiction series centers on the actions of a clandestine organization called the Sentinels, and their attempts to maintain peace between the humans and other alien races. This particular adventure involves a race known as the Jarufani.

In the novel, we discover the Sentinels have been involved with conflicts between the humans and the Jarufani before. The Jarufani have deep religious convictions and they believe a sacred object exists on, or near, the planet Earth. They want to recover it.

Like many religious cultures, they have extremist elements. These groups incited a war that only ended recently. With both sides now distrustful, espionage is the order of the day. Against this backdrop, the Sentinels race to stop a group of religious extremists from hunting for the sacred object. They fear the search could start a new war between the humans and Jarufani.

The book has a host of characters, and uses third person viewpoint to jump among them. I liked the story, but I found the opening to be slow and a bit confusing. The action in the novel will appeal to younger readers, but the third person viewpoint makes the characters seem remote. I found the long passages explaining political entanglements distracting. Incorporating them in dialogue or scattering them in shorter passages might have been better.
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I most enjoyed the impending confrontation near the close of the book. However, I was badly let down by parts of the resolution. Younger readers might not be as judgmental. Like any good series, the ending promised more conflict between the surviving characters at a future date.

There are many plots and counter plots revolving in the story, and several are left unresolved. You see enough of the conspiracies to recognize which group is the guiding hand. However, some organizations make only cursory appearances. You’re left wondering if they were necessary to the story at all.

Overall, I felt the dialogue was good. The characters spoke intelligently, though I thought they sounded too similar. I found few personality differences to tell them apart. Romance between characters was too distant. There were brief sexual encounters, but little of the casual intimacy that exists between lovers.

Characterization needed to be stronger. The characters performed their actions but they didn’t feel lifelike. They lacked real depth. Furthermore, while the world was in conflict, the characters didn’t seem conflicted. Everybody did their jobs, and people lived or died as the cards fell. Grief, as expressed by the characters, felt unreal.

As a result, I wasn’t invested in any of the characters. They lived. They died. I turned the page. I wanted to know how the conflict resolved - not how the characters made out. Readers of the previous two books might have more empathy. I did not.

The character’s clothes got little description, as did the settings. When entering a cave, you got little feeling for its size, its composition, its coloration. You didn’t hear echoes, or feel the crunch of boots on stone. The characters often wore invisibility suits, but when deactivated they weren’t described well; neither were uniforms, suits, nor dresses. There was little feeling for size, for sound, or for smell in briefing rooms, ship cockpits, or bridges.

I found the book’s spelling, grammar, and punctuation to be fine. A few mistakes were present, but nothing detracted from the story. The book’s formatting needed work. Chapter headings were not centered. A single-spaced line marked scene shifts in many places, but asterisks were used in others. Pages weren’t numbered. Considering how the viewpoint shifts from character to character, there’s no reason to have chapters at all. They served no consistent function. Usually they indicated a jump from one character group to another. At other times, they indicated a change in time. But, with jumps occurring within chapters to different characters, different character groups, and different times, there was no consistency.

I found the cover design unappealing. It looked like a screenshot of an old computer game. The picture was too dark, too blocky, and represented a scene barely mentioned in the book.

While I would certainly encourage the author to keep writing, I did not feel that this book was a worthwhile read except for very young adults. For the reasons listed above, I rated it 2 out of 4 stars. The book could have some appeal to young action-oriented readers. For older readers, the story, while entertaining, was not that well written.

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The Sea of Iden
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