Book Synopsis "Prepare is a superhero story. Darren Kiel is tired of seeing many crimes in his neighbourhood and seeing peoples lives ruled and ruined by the gangs. He takes it upon himself to become a superhero so he can prevent the crimes before anyone gets hurt. Darren is initially very successful and saves many citizens from being hurt or killed. He has morals and does his best to incapacitate the criminals without seriously injuring them. Soon Darren because the target not only of the gangs but also of law enforcement who don’t care for his vigilante tactics."
Richi's Review: In full disclosure I received a free copy of this book from the author. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read your book and thank you for signing it as well!
The introduction to this book is very interesting; it is basically a short essay about how technology has evolved to enhance human senses. This is quite appropriate given the story (the hero uses technology to enhance his senses and abilities) but also because the descriptions in this book are extremely well written. The author takes care not to just to describe the sights of the world, but also the smells, sounds, touch and tastes too. Every one of your senses is stimulated and it is very easy to understand what is happening in the story and how it would feel to be there.
The great descriptions aren’t limited to the senses though, the descriptions of the events are also excellent it is very easy to follow them and know what is going on. They are also interesting and enjoyable to read.
The science of the story is excellent; the author obviously has a good understanding of what he is writing about. The balance between being realistic enough to be believable but fantastic enough to be interesting and superhero-like is perfect.
Most of the time when a new character is introduced we are given a short background on them. These are just the right length, long enough to give you enough to understand who this new person is, but not so long that it leaves you wanting to get back to the story. They are all well written and interesting.
Early on the hero seemed to be too powerful and unbeatable; fortunately (from a story point of view) the villains find out his “kryptonite” and with our hero vulnerable it really increases the dramatic tension. For the early part of the story (the first 80 pages or so), it is told from the point of view of the characters who encounter the hero, rather than the hero himself and we learn virtually nothing about him. This actually makes it very interesting as we want to learn more about this mysterious hero, where is abilities come from and how did he come into being.
There is plenty of action in this book; in the first 50 pages we have had three action sequences! This keeps things interesting and exciting. The book isn’t limited to action though and there are plenty of talking scenes where we get to learn more about the characters.
There is a bit of humour in the book which is nice to see.
There were a few bad points to this book; one of them was an overuse of similes. Sometimes there are several to a page, I wouldn’t say any of them were bad or didn’t make sense, just that there was too many of them for my liking.
A few of the conversations early on were a little bland and dull. But once we learn more about the hero and he starts to have more talking scenes, the conversations get much richer, and many are intelligent and thought provoking.
There were a few little annoyances such as in one point in the story we are told “The oddity of an evening gown at 7:00 AM never occurred to him (Darren)” But about half a page later Darren makes a joke about wearing an evening dress at that time of day. Another time it is a plot point that all buildings, even if they are disused, always have active fire suppressing systems (sprinklers), then later it is a plot point that a particular building does NOT have the system working.
I also thought that the second, larger gang that turns up late in the story found out everything about Darren’s life and his secret base far too easily and were too well armed and equipped.
I would have also liked to have seen more of a developing relationship between Darren and Corrine. I would liked for there to have been more background on Adam especially considering he is Darren’s only real friend and the only one who knows about his double life..
It should be noted that there is quite a lot of swearing in this book and some violence; it is probably only suitable for an adult audience.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the story is exciting and well written, and the characters are very good. The descriptions are exceptional and it is very easy to feel you are in this world. There are a couple of very minor annoyances but not enough to detract from the story.
Four and a half Superhero Cloaks out of Five!
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