Review by sweeneyn26 -- Heaven and Earth by Arturo Riojas

[sweeneyn26]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Heaven and Earth" by Arturo Riojas.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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I was very excited to receive and read this book. The premise reminded me of books like The Martian and Station Eleven, where science fact is blended with science fiction to create a story that both educates and entertains. However, I was incredibly disappointed by this book and I would not recommend it to a friend.

The book Heaven And Earth is a sci-fi novel, by Dr. Arturo Riojas, where he ties his knowledge of cadmium poisoning into a story about alien invasions and alliances. The plot of the story bounces around so much that I constantly felt the need to go back and re-read parts. The Treretum society is presented without enough exposition and backstory, but the first chapter was almost all backstory I didn’t need or want. I was constantly confused reading this. I could find no cohesive storyline among the multitude of protagonists.

The science of it was also inscrutable. I have a chemical engineering degree and I could not understand the points Dr. Riojas was trying to make about the real effects of cadmium poisoning. Maybe if there had been a little less nonsensical alien “plot,” I would have been able to distinguish what was fact from what was fiction. The narrative kept switching from present to past tense, which makes me think that Dr. Riojas is more used to writing scientific texts, where past tense and passive voice are encouraged. These writing characteristics do not make for an entertaining novel. This book was not edited thoroughly, as there are errors in grammar on the very first page.

It seemed like the author got some bad advice about writing, like the clichés about “there’s always a more interesting word than ‘said’” or “never use the first adjective you think of.” The writing style seemed like it was a teenager writing for an English class, and trying to shoehorn in SAT words or using the word processor’s thesaurus function.

I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. I found no enjoyment in this book. This quality of this book is making me leave this program. Even for free books, I do not want to be a part of a program that forces people to read terrible books and then emails them incessantly guilt tripping about the review I “owe” for the club bearing the cost of the book. In truth, the book club should owe me for reading such a terrible book.

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Heaven and Earth
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