3 out of 4 stars
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Gathering Forces is a science fiction novel, Book One of the Steele Chronicles: Colony Crisis Series by Andrew Utsogn. The year is 5568, the 56th century. Humanity has spread across the galaxy, now spanning a hundred light years. The first and oldest colony is on a planet called Centauri in the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. As technology improves and new colonies expand beyond governed space, humans continue to push outwards to explore and colonise what they see as being "rightly theirs". Unfortunately, other planetary inhabitants may disagree, as "Xeno Wrangler" Carl Wolf finds when he joins one such exploration team. Meanwhile, Tatyana Orlov is on the run in Novyy Moskva, a city in the Alpha Centauri System, pursued by the deadly Dimitri and the police. She is wanted for the murder of her father, Doctor Orlov. Further afield, on the planet of New Hope in the Beta Bootis system, a reptilian race of Dak'kati battle the Kluj in a cataclysmic war.
Utsogn's writing is simple, clean, and easy to read. He has a great imagination, rendering his unusual worlds from scratch. His descriptive detail isn't obsessive, merely released as needed, which I liked. He seems to have put much thought and effort into his depiction of the universe in the distant future. The dialogue is neat and the characters seem realistic. The tense and fast-paced climactic action scene is gripping, as is an earlier action scene; I really flew through these sections of the book. Overall, I found this story entertaining all the way through.
However, this book needs further editing. I found ten minor errors by page 40. Aside from punctuation errors, a lowercase letter is often used to begin speech mid-sentence: "She turned to the boss before answering, 'no, no logs,'" instead of 'No, no logs'. Incorrect words are sometimes used, such as "breathes" for "breaths", "tact" for "tack", and "discrete" for "discreet". The latter annoys me, as they have two very different meanings: "separate" and "secretive". Also, a different character's speech usually doesn't begin a new paragraph, which is confusing and frustrating when you have to re-read paragraphs after assuming the same person has spoken twice when it is actually two people. These issues reinforce how important it is to read plenty of books yourself to get the editing right in your own.
Some of Utsogn's writing is a little "off" or "lazy" at times; this is rare but still noticeable. For example: "It wasn't until he walked along the edges of the clearing before he could begin to inspect the real jungle." The correct phrasing is: "...that he could begin to inspect..." as "before" doesn't work in this context. Another example is: "There were also several various sized craters partially filled with water strewn about." This makes it sound like the water is strewn about, not the craters. I would say: "Several water-filled craters of various sizes were strewn about." This also shortens the sentence. As I said, editing is key.
As for "laziness": "The first signs of the night sky had begun to appear from the moons that started to appear as the sun moved closer to the horizon." It stands out having both "begun to appear" and "started to appear" in the same sentence. Another example is on page 342, with the phrase "taking notice" or "taking note" used three times across three consecutive sentences. I also feel the chapters could be shortened with further breaks in the narrative, such as when Carl sleeps overnight in Chapter 4.
My rating for Gathering Forces is 3 out of 4 stars. Though it has many errors, they are all minor and could all be fixed with a decent edit. Were it possible to award half-stars, I would give this book 2-and-a-half, especially considering I have had to award a few really excellent books 3 stars (when they deserved 4) based on them having just over ten minor errors in the entire manuscript. However, the story in this book is solid and entertaining and I never grew bored anywhere in nearly 500 pages. With professional editing, I would recommend this book to any fan of science fiction; just be advised it includes a few violent action scenes.
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Steele Chronicles Colony Crisis Book 1: Gathering Forces
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