ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ ꜱʜᴏᴘ

review | eleven

Title: King Eden
Genre: Sci-Fi
Author: RowanCarver

REVIEWER : DaniBrull

COVER: The cover is flat-out amazing. It's almost like a painting-it draws me in. I can totally see somebody looking at this cover and immediately falling in love with it.

TITLE: I think the title is great and fits the story quite well.

BLURB: This is so well-written. It reminds me of a query letter. It's very structured, gives us just enough of the world, and invites in a bunch of tension. I usually follow the three W's when making a story or a blurb: What does the MC want? What is keeping them from getting that? What happens if they don't get what they want? And you nailed every single one of them.

PLOT DEVELOPMENT: The first chapter had great descriptions and did a wonderful job at pulling us into a landscape that was full of illness and decay. And man, you can paint a picture quite well-the image of all of those people breathing underground, potentially ill... wonderful. You couldn't have picked a better place to start a story. I love our MC. Quite headstrong.
You did SO well with grounding us in the story using the five senses throughout your five chapters-I wanted to point this out. The second chapter really pulled at my heartstrings-I was so worried for Eli, the illness (corruption), and quite curious about the bounty placed on King's head and why on earth their life is like this. It doesn't seem to be working for them (yet)-so much chaos for our protagonist here. I think with the kind of person they are, they can handle it just fine.
Something I really wanted to note-chapter three, the bugs under the skin describing the corruption. It was so well-written that I broke out in hives. This reminds me a little bit of Resident Evil with the healing aspect and the host aspect. The imagery and the awesome way you describe gore, and the like, is top tier. I love that stuff. I didn't even have to ask for more-you delivered.
Chapter five-nice ending. We want to go on that journey with them to get their son back. The way you describe the world and the Martians felt like I was really there in the story; it played like a movie for me.
I loved the way the chapters left off-with a kind of cliffhanger. Your pacing was perfect, your writing was flawless (really, I didn't catch anything in terms of grammar, syntax, or spelling). I was really looking here.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Oh man, can we talk about how badass King is, and how much Fix absolutely sucks? I think Eli is so sweet and is kind of a selfless soul. As a parent myself, I totally got how King felt and how important their son was to them, but, man, you gotta take it easy for those kids sometimes. This also begs the question as to King's motivation to live their life in this particular way-I mean, they can never catch a break, can they? Balls-to-the-wall nonstop action scenes were exactly that-you did not disappoint the hype there.

OVERALL VIEW: I totally get why this story has won so many awards. This kind of clean, detailed, and immersive writing is something that begs a spotlight. We have action. We have amazing descriptions. We have a crazy, weird, and decaying post-apocalyptic world that I am happy you are sharing with us. Well done.