Review by MissMarie71 -- Solaris Seethes (Solaris Saga b...

MissMarie71 · Post by **MissMarie71** » 10 Mar 2018, 01:44

[Following is a volunteer review of "Solaris Seethes (Solaris Saga book 1)" by Janet McNulty.]

3 out of 4 stars

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Solaris Seethes is a science fiction/fantasy novel about Rynah, a young security officer on the planet Lanyr, who suddenly finds herself being betrayed by a trusted love one, a betrayal that destroys her planet. Rynah is now on a mission to save the universe from being destroyed by seeking out six crystals. Thanks to her grandfather’s ship, Solaris, she gathers four individuals from different periods of Earth’s history to help her on her quest, and to fight her way through all the unseen dangers in her path.

What I liked the most about this novel, was that it delved right into the story without any long, unnecessary descriptions of people, places or things – the action was instantaneous, and remained constant throughout. And the characters themselves were completely fleshed out. You don’t learn too much about them all at once – you get to know them more and more over time. You do get a good idea of who they are once you met them, but it’s not so overdone in the beginning, that you have to keep going back over and over to reread. The writer did a good job of not making you think you missed something.

Two things bothered me, however. The first thing was the constant Point of View (or POV) slips without any breaks in text (either chapter or paragraph breaks) It’s confusing to have to focus on more than one character at a time. If the POV is on Rynah, the next sentence shouldn’t be on what Alfric is thinking or what he’s feeling about something. Unless he comes right out and says how he’s feeling, Rynah shouldn’t know. She could have a feeling or guess, but she can’t just know. It made for very hard reading.

The second thing is that I felt that the book was not properly edited. While I didn’t see any grammar or spelling errors (it did appear that whoever edited did do a really good line edit, aka spelling and grammar) they didn’t catch the multiple POV slips. There was also a few bits of clunky text such as in the beginning of Chapter Fourteen:

"Klanor studied the words in the old book, that rightfully belonged to Rynah (willed to her by Marlowe) and he had stolen from her, before him…"

A good editor should have been able to not only catch how clunky and confusing that line was, but also the POV slips, and I just don’t feel that that was done in this case.

Overall, I give Solaris Seethes 3 out of 4 stars. The story, the characters and the constant action were well written enough to keep me wanting to read the rest of the series to find out more, so that kept it from getting a 2, but the constant POV slips and lack of editing kept me from giving it a 4.

******
Solaris Seethes (Solaris Saga book 1)
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jamertin2963 · Post by **jamertin2963** » 10 Mar 2018, 10:42

I agree that the editing left a lot to be desired in this one. The constant use of em dashes and parentheses for unnecessary descriptive asides just about drove me up the wall while I was reading.

MissMarie71 · Post by **MissMarie71** » 10 Mar 2018, 21:23

Oh yes, that too. I was just so put off by all the POV slips that I didn't even get to those!!

jamertin2963 · Post by **jamertin2963** » 11 Mar 2018, 13:22

MissMarie71 wrote: ↑10 Mar 2018, 21:23 Oh yes, that too. I was just so put off by all the POV slips that I didn't even get to those!!

Yes, those were frustrating as well! I had to repeatedly read some sentences just to figure out who was "thinking".

Manang Muyang · Post by **Manang Muyang** » 14 Mar 2018, 20:36

Welcome to OBC, MissMarie71! Enjoy the club - reading, reviewing and forum-hopping. Hope to read more from you.

Solaris Seethes is a book that has both good and bad ratings. I have the book in my Kindle (got it free from Amazon), but I haven't read it. I am glad you seem to have enjoyed it, despite the small frustrations.

Poppy Drear · Post by **Poppy Drear** » 15 Mar 2018, 20:10

I didn't even notice the problems with point of view when reading; it was the parenthetical asides and clunky wording that really caught my attention. I really feel like this author will go on to write some very good stories, but only with dedication to improving the mechanics of their writing.