1 out of 4 stars
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Metzra is a short fiction book by M. U. Phoenix. It's about 80 pages and can be read in one day. It is listed as belonging to the science fiction genre.
Raivy’s mother has recently passed away. He is devastated, and he decides to take some time to himself in the forest. In the meantime, Hitara who is a friend of Raivy's mother is not the same after her death either. She was the only one ever able to keep Hitara sane.
While in the forest, Raivy comes across a blue mist and enters. There he finds a different world called Metzra. This was a world his mother told him about in fairy tales when he was young. He meets a horsesnake (exactly what it sounds like) who says that he will help Raivy figure out who killed his mother if Raivy will come back to help their world find peace.
Raivy takes him up on the offer. First, though, they must go to Hitara. Raivy thinks he might be able to help her, since he also used to visit with Hitara with his mother.
The author mentioned that this was a book that you would think about long after reading. That's probably true as you'll be trying to figure out what the point of the story was. Moreover, you'll probably spend time asking yourself why you bothered to read it.
First, there were many grammatical errors. Many times words in a sentence ran together. There were also missing words all over the place. Beyond that, there would be tense changes in the middle of a sentence. All this easily could have been corrected by a good editor.
As to the plot, it was not fully developed. There were so many holes in the plot, it felt like a submarine with a screen door. I didn't understand what the two worlds had to do with each other. Plus, there were characters that the author tried to relate to both worlds. Instead of coming out and saying it, the author used another character to imply it. Unfortunately, I was too dense to figure out the implications.
Furthermore, the writing felt elementary and stilted at times. For example let me show you the following passage. “That is why I told you to use a black or brown hair color,” said Raivy. “You could have blended with the villagers, unnoticed.” It just doesn't sound realistic to me.
As for the ending, it is to be continued. Some pieces of the plot were wrapped up, but there were still many questions. It seems as if the author was trying to create a prequel. However, for me, it was unsuccessful.
Since the only redeeming quality of this book was its length, I'm forced to rate Metzra 1 out of 4 stars. The author would need to fill in some of the many gaps as well as get a good editor before I could recommend this book to anyone.
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Metzra
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