2 out of 4 stars
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Heaven and Earth by Arturo Riojas is a thought provoking sci-fi/fantasy novel with a strong persuasive influence. The writer has very strong beliefs backed by plenty of research and the result is a very informative and touching story that will leave you wondering, what exactly is going on around us while we are clearly unaware? Influenced strongly by real world issues this story will likely entangle any reader who is even somewhat intrigued by government corruption and I mean who nowadays isn't?
This is the tale of a future world much like our world now poisoned by itself and on the edge of self destruction and a neighboring species and their desire to solve similar problems on their own planet Treretum. The Earth is already set in ways to ruin itself just like Treretum and they can recognise the signs. Treretum finds themselves in a time of great despair while desperately trying to reverse the damage of what they explain to be heavy metal poisoning throughout their planet’s soil and food supply. The story follows Treretum and Earth and their similar problems and how the two can help each other. This is a nice tale of coming together to solve a problem when it is much bigger than yourself.
I would like to start by pointing out the things in this book that I love, the things that really make it unique. One of the things I found the most interesting was the authors frequent use of spanish throughout the text. The translations were always right there so it made reading another language less stressful which made it quite enjoyable. This addition of another language added a little something extra for my brain as well as just making it sound better. I also enjoyed the use of real world issues as the catalyst for destruction in this almost not so sci fi world. It all seems so very plausible which makes it very interesting to me. I applaud the amount of research that must have went into writing this book. It was very well prepared and the facts were very accurate. I also found almost no grammatical errors so the editing must have been very well done.
Now to get to the not so great parts of this book and why in the end it seems somewhat void. It is made blatantly obvious to the reader that the issue of cadmium poisoning is the basis for this story. I felt as though it was a bit heavy at times a little more attention to literary details would have made this story seem far less heavy with facts. Each chapter felt like a different event but they lacked the depth you get from describing the scenery in detail or the extra attention to characterization. I found it a bit difficult to get truly immersed in the world. I at times felt as though I was being lectured a bit when it got to the attachments at the end of each chapter. The attachments were utilized to allow the reader an opportunity to get just plain facts about cadmium poisoning and if the reader was not thrilled about this addition they could choose to skip over these sections. I read them all and while some of the information was great and really got me wondering it also at times sent me into a deep depression. I do want the facts but I also don’t want to be so overwhelmed that it feels like I can do nothing with the information I have been given. I found myself wanting to do something about the levels of cadmium in my own diet but often felt like I would have nothing to eat if I tried.
My official rating for Heaven and Earth is a 2 out of 4. Overall I really wanted to like this book and for the most part I did but there is something very lackluster about it and leaves me feeling underwhelmed. The story itself is not very long encompassing about 300 pages on its own but the addition of facts through the several appendices brings the book another hundred pages of quite heavy content. It was worth reading to me because it did have some great information I was not aware of and brought an issue to my attention that I think I might have been kept blind to. However I did spend some time to read through what seems like a not to interesting story just get the knowledge that we are being poisoned by cadmium. If you are looking for a super interesting sci fi novel about aliens I would definitely not recommend this while it is technically scifi it is not very true to the genre and seems more persuasive than narrative at times. I think true conspiracy theorists and people who enjoy some light scifi or some heavy science would absolutely love this book. I also would not recommend this book for younger readers. The content is not inappropriate for them but rather just maybe a bit beyond their grasp intellectually. This book definitely has a purpose so if you are just looking for some light leisurely reading this is not the book for you.
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Heaven and Earth
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