Review: The Phoenix Cycle

Read from August 10 to 11, 2014 — I own a copy, read count: 1

Synopsis: This is a prelude to “The Phoenix Cycle” series.

“The Phoenix Cycle” is a sci-fi dystopian series. It is about holding onto what you believe and not losing your faith in mankind.

The story takes place in New San Francisco after an unknown apocalypse covered the earth in ash. The city is ruled by a powerful general who holds onto a prominent moral of America today. “To rise higher.”

However, people must act selfishly in order to get ahead in this city. This has made for a twisted and contradicting set of morals for its citizens.

In the “Phoenix Cycle: Part 1” a revolution has begun. The revolution is headed by the forgotten inmates of Alcatraz. These inmates are actually powerful philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Camus, Gandhi and others. Together they will take on The General (who is based off of The Marquis de Sade. A rather dark philosopher.) and a populace that struggles to care about anything other than themselves.

The prelude contains no philosophy. It is given to get a feel of the society I will be developing and how the series will be written.

Check out this kickstarter for more on the series!

Bookish Things: 38 pages. The cover is interesting. I like the grittiness of it.

Where to buy:  Free on Smashwords, or from Amazon on kindle for $0.87

My Review: 

Bookshelves: smashwords-review, 3-star-review, indie-author, indie-review-copies, something-missing, too-short, ya, dystopian

The Phoenix Cycle: Would you?, seems to be a very brief introduction to a much larger story. This section of the story probably raises more questions than it should.

I wondered about the ash, the potato bar, the Inner Circle and who the hell these people were, why they were doing these things and who was the one making them?

I understand that introductions to a story should raise questions, but not that many, and not that many when you’re not going to offer anything to the reader as a way of enticing them to keep reading the series.

The introduction is too short for the reader to become attached to the characters, and it’s too short for any semblance of understanding to begin. This perhaps, could be the opening chapters of a novel, but don’t remove from the rest of the story, because it doesn’t make me want to keep reading, there’s too much unknown.

I would have kept reading if there was more to read, right there, but now that I’ve finished, I won’t be picking up the next part of this story, it’s too vague.

One thing I noticed:

49% – Normally, it wall (delete wall) was locked…