Sanctuary Reviews

Guardium by SeanScruffy

Guardium by  SeanScruffy follows a young Messenger hopeful named Illian Jones as he becomes a Messenger for Gia and attempts to establish contact, in the hopes that Gia can come to Earth's aid once again.

The cover utilizes negative space in an effective and eye catching way. I like how the white space was used to establish the text and the image of space was in the background. It drew attention to the font and title of the story. I found the testimonials difficult to read as the font was a bit small. However, I fully acknowledge this could be entirely due to my poor eyesight and no fault to the cover.

The blurb serves to convey the plot, central conflict and main character effectively. The concept of Messengers, and their congregation Guardium is also shown clearly in the blurb.

The concept of the story is unique. The Messengers seem to be a twist on both the concept of Angels and prophets. I like that the congregation Guardium isn't limited to only humans, or one religion but extends to aliens and other religions as well.

The world-building is well done and worked naturally into the narrative of the story. We get to see the world through Illian's eyes. His individual voice as a character is maintained through the narration itself, not only when he's speaking, which can often be difficult to achieve through 3rd person. When we are introduced to additional characters, their voice is distinct and unique to each character and conveys their individual personalities.

As we're introduced to new aliens and concepts within the world, we are shown them through Illian's eyes and his perspective. I found we are told just enough about the alien species to understand and visualise them and some of the world-building about them. Any exposition concerning the aliens was constricted to moments where there really was no way to show the information.

The story as a whole does an excellent job of showing rather than telling which can certainly be a challenge for sci-fi stories, especially high sci-fi. Personally, I enjoy being drip fed information so I liked that we got to the see the world as it occurred around Illian rather than be explained everything up front. There was an excellent balance between necessary exposition and showing in the introduction. I thought beginning with a message was a great, natural way to introduce the reader to the concept of Messengers. I also like that we are introduced to Illian as he is undergoing a hearing to determine his qualifications to become a Messenger. This was a great way to introduce us to some of the alien species in the world, Illian and some of the other world-building elements such as the Orbital Bombardment and the role Gia played in saving Earth.

The descriptions in the story were vivid, with lines such as; "unlike humans, you could make out the muscles that flexed and ebbed to speak". The story as a whole has a distinct and personal flow and style. There are unique turns of phrase that I enjoyed such as "familiar miracles played out in front of the Messenger hopeful." Though there were some instances where I got a bit lost in the prose. Some sentences I had to read again to grasp what was being meant. The line "it glistened with crusted patchilly with a shimmering dust" could be clarified by rearranging or removing some words.

When Illian is recounting his message from Gia, I noticed some additional spacing between paragraphs and was uncertain if this was intentional. There were some instances where dialogue could be separated from the paragraph when the action belongs to a non-speaking character to avoid confusion.

I enjoyed Illian as a character and I liked his zeal and determination to become a Messenger. I enjoyed the characterisation we get to see of Illian in Gia: Age 20 and Act 3 and wished we could have seen a bit more of this in the previous chapters.

Overall, "Guardium" has a unique concept coupled with a distinct voice and style. The mash up of high sci-fi and old gods and legends is compelling. The mixture of these elements is handled well as the reader is taken on a journey along with Illian.