Book Review: Science Fiction or Hysterical novella the author should have?

The Forgotten Age
by Jack Eason

I really wish to forget this unfortunate book because it is forcing me to violate my rules regarding book reviews but I am angry. I do not generally do negative reviews. If a book is going poorly, the story doesn’t grab me or the genre is not my normal flavor and not changing my mind by fifty percent completed then I bail and give it the review of silence. This aberration drew me in past the fifty percent mark even through the poor editing and character development so here goes.

The Forgotten Age is a novella trying to paint a story of a pre-Pharonic civilization in Egypt using a protagonist who is supposed to be a modern English (pun-intended) Indiana Jones with all of his compatriots being Ukrainian mafia and corrupt Egyptian bureaucrats. Oops, can’t forget the clever American sidekick who has some unexplained religious beliefs that must come into conflict with the protagonist’s mystery solving because…it just does.

List of crap:
1) Do not build paragraphs by pairing three or more sentences saying exactly the same thing. Paragraphs have a point and supporting sentences, and yes there is a difference.

2) It is a bad idea to bombard the reader suddenly with hyped up drama where there has been no build up of conflict.

3) Point of view issues can be catalogued using this one work. Narrator dumps are an extremely poor method of telling fiction. Moving on.

4) Time scale within this story is so skewed you would have the reader believe the group of explorers spent almost a year under Ghiza with just the supplies they had carried on their backs.

Lastly do not try to suspend the disbelief of the reader so that in their struggle to reach the end of your…thing…they are rewarded by you pulling the ripcord and sealing (not ceiling) in the protagonists and all of his lemming helpers for the remainder of eternity just because your brain went on vacation. Was that sentence long enough to make it onto your radar?

The Forgotten Age will not be receiving any of my usual promo. I intend to post this on my blog, Facebook, Google+, Amazon and Goodreads as a warning buoy. ‘Beware, someone soiled themselves here.’ Now you know why I have my rules of review. I don’t like doing this. Enjoy.