2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
A settlement on the moon, space transportation, and a simulation game involving all senses are only a few of the futuristic developments presented in The Providence of Fortune. This novella by T.K. Love is bound to captivate science fiction fans.
The Providence of Fortune retells the life of businessman Conrad Jefferson. Conrad’s lifelong dream is to build and launch the Palladium Station, ‘a casino hot spot at the edges of space.’ The Palladium is the fulfillment of his father’s vision. With Conrad’s company, Embark Interplanetary Space Transportation, this vision is almost at hand. However, Conrad’s business partner starts pushing for an alliance among Embark Interplanetary, the moon-settlement, Helios, and the underwater city, New America. This alliance will not only impede the launching of the Palladium but will also result in more problems with terrorists and anti-settlement groups. While Conrad struggles to find a way out of this unwanted alliance, his friend Zain invents a simulation game hosted by the human-like character Nebula. Zain invites Conrad to test the game, and Conrad gives the game a rather lukewarm assessment. But unbeknownst to Conrad, what he dismissed to be just another simulation will eventually affect his lifelong dream.
This novella has a very good premise and some notable characters. Nebula, in particular, invites curiosity and will definitely compel readers to read more. However, despite the enthralling plot and an ensemble of interesting characters, the book failed to establish a concrete world. The author immediately jumped into introducing his characters and some important events, without fully establishing the world in the story. I want to know more about what the world looked like, what were the societal systems, the prevailing political constructs, etc.
The book also focused on the grand opening of the Palladium, but until now, I honestly do not know much about this space station. The book mentioned some snippets of the Palladium's design, but I could not fully grasp its functions or picture the Palladium yet. I understand that The Providence of Future is the first book in an intended series. Perhaps the author plans to discuss more on the Palladium in later installments. Nonetheless, I would have appreciated more information regarding the Palladium in this book as it is one of the key concepts in the story.
The book also needs proofreading. I noticed a couple of typos, wrong punctuation usage, and capitalization errors. There were also a number of homophone errors and wrong word usage. For instance, the author used ‘find’ for ‘fined,’ ‘older’ for ‘odor,’ and often wrote ‘it’s’ instead of ‘its.’
Though the author seemed to have great ideas for this novella, I have to give The Providence of Fortune 2 out of 4 stars. I deducted 2 stars due to the grammatical errors and the lack of descriptions on the world featured in the story. I would still recommend this to science fiction fans. But please note that if you are looking for a futuristic world explored through vivid descriptions, then this book may not reach your expectations.
******
The Providence of Fortune
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like jvez's review? Post a comment saying so!