Review of Pulse: Book One

[Salla Kolehmainen]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Pulse: Book One" by B.A. Bellec.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Pulse from B.A. Bellec is a futuristic dystopian horror tale set on Earth in the year of 2040. The reader follows the story from the point of view of multiple characters as they navigate a world of tomorrow controlled by an evil megacorporation called Pulse, opposed by an eco-anarchist group named Anti-P. The events take place around a music festival organized by Pulse, but the Anti-P has planned a surprise to expose them once and for all...

The themes of the novel are rather straightforward and come through as so; Capitalism is bad for the people and the environment. Human greed is the cause of our own doom. Every now and then the author has implemented a real life quote at the beginning of a chapter to reflect this sentiment. Some of the fictional names and personalities have their obvious real-life counterparts which they shamelessly parody. Blood and gore are also aplenty.

The writing itself is rather weak and riddled with clichés and worn out stereotypes. The characters are multiple, but they are left rather shallow, accompanied with rushed and frequent changes in the point of view, making it difficult for the reader to form any sort of emotional attachment to them, and actually care about their struggles and the relationships between them. The plot is there, but it comes of as incomplete and rushed, due to it not being allowed to develop naturally through the characters.

Whether this is because of the inexperience of the author, or a deliberate, experimental choice of style is debatable, but the introduction does mention that the author wanted to utilize screenplay techniques in his work, which in my humble opinion, gives nothing of value to the writing. In fact, the author comes off a bit pretentious with his self-promotion at the beginning and the end of the book, which seemed kind of unnecessary to begin with.

Overall, the book has an interesting premise, and a somewhat structured plot. However, the writing suffers from weakly established characters, and a lack of interpersonal interactions between them. The text is rather heavy and obnoxious to read, as it rather explains and narrates the plot, rather than allowing the plot to come through from the characters, and giving the reader information between the lines. "Show, don't tell" is a good principle to remember when it comes to writing books.

Due to these facts, I have to give this one the lowest rating of 1 out of 4.

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Pulse: Book One
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