An eye-opening sci-fi thriller.

POV

 

By Chris Brosnahan

Rating: 3 & 1/2 stars out of 5

Chris Brosnahan wrote POV in 30 hours. In fact, it was the winner of a 30 hours competition for the best novel written in that frame of time. For that alone, POV is impressive. I can barely write a short story in 30 hours. I guess you could be a nitpicker and say that, at 87 pages, it barely qualifies as a novella...but I'm still impressed.

But is it good? Yeah, It is really good. It's a nice mix of science fiction and thriller centering around a future technology in which a person can receive a device inside their eyes that can change their view of the world; change the color of your car, make your partner into a movie star, make yourself thinner, etc. The resulst are only viewable to you, or least that is what we are told from the beginning, but I think you can see the advantages. Our optometrist hero discovers that someone is killing the people that are receiving this new tech from him.

That's enough to know except to expect a few sharp turns. It's a good story especially considering how much the author placed in it with a 30 hour time limit and 80 odd pages. But that's the problem with it too. There's so much this could have easily been a longer novel. I wanted it to be a longer novel. Some things happen too fast and could easily have survived more build-up and emotional embellishment. Not that it didn't have that, mind you. I just wanted more! More! More!

I guess that's a compliment too. I'm not sure it is a fair criticism since the author set out to do what he needed to do and did it well. I gotta stick with my gut feeling. But here's a bit of unsolicited advice. There is a tradition in the science fiction genre for authors to take very popular short stories and rewrite them into novels. If any work is screaming for a longer rewrite, this is it.

There are also 4 other brief pieces included in this ebook. All of the tales are quite good with "The Warning" and "The Happy Pills" being fairly awesome.

The whole kit and caboodle? Three and a half stars.

Method Acquired:  Netgalley