Prepare by Geoffrey Germann
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!
