Book Review: Discount Miracles

Discount Miracles

By:  Brand Gamblin

Published By:  A Big C Production

Publish Date:  May 17, 2012

Format:  Paperback 197pgs, trade size

Genre:  Science Fiction, Fantasy

Series:  Stand-alone

Recommendation:  Mmm, If you like a fantasy scifi blend and want a quick easy read.

Synopsis:
The crew of the space salvage ship JNE-0518 (the Jenny) have crashed on a planet that has lost its link to civilization.  Surrounded by kingdoms stuck in the dark ages, the crew decides to hire themselves out as wizards, available to make any prophecy come true.

But the latest job goes bad when they find themselves transporting a deified prince.  Can the team get away from two different nations before they are caught and burned as royal kidnappers and witches?

Even it they can escape the two armies, can they escape the iron grip of prophecy itself?

First Sentence:
"So that gives us," the captain did some quick mental arithmetic, "Just under two minutes."

My Thoughts and Summary:
The space ships engine has gone and they are forced to land on the closest habitual planet, similar enough to earths atmosphere.  The Prime Minister Joran is thinking of hiring the crew to full fill miracles to keep his peoples faith strong, but he sees the crew as "witches" and not sure if he should.  There is an actual prophecy mentioned in one of the countries oldest holy books and it seems to have been started as well, in life.  Captain Jason and crew need to help the found prophesied boy ascend on his twentieth birthday, coming in twenty-three days, to keep the people from potentially rioting against their ruler thinking him a fraud and the government from losing the faith people hold in the the faith build government.  But then he needs to disappear.  While working in different countries helping full fill and potentially stop prophecies, they also work on a radio hoping will be able to contact a passing trade vessel to pick them up.  However, the isolated living people on the planet start to collide when the prophecies are or are not filled, and how they expect the outcomes to be.

We start right in on the first page at crisis moment on the space ship with Jason, captain, and Robert and Dannia.  Quick decisions need to be made and my curiosity peeked about the "prisoner", or stowaway.  However, even though he becomes a player in the story I really never find out how or why he's on the ship with the crew.

To me this story read like a play.  I could have used a little more descriptions and details, flesh out some more of the characters, feelings, and what's around them.  I kind of felt Robert was the only character that was expanded on most by his history and planet upbringing.

This is kind of a space science fiction landing in a fantasy world.  Which is always neat to do with the colonies on different planets.  Our crew; Jason, Robert, Dannia, and Anvir are from another planet in their technological spaceship on a planet with people in the dark ages.  Here on this world, our crew would be considered witches with the technology they own and have knowledge of.  The question becomes, what do you share with a world of isolated people?  So they don't learn the things of harming themselves or others.  Keep your technology secret or share it?

I did get the feel this story is more people and real life happenings that are still dealt with and do happen when in a story.  Which is neat to have in a story, to feel there are still "real life" happenings that have to be dealt with.

The characters...the prince that the prophecy is about.  My first impression of Prince Raeburn was he was a spoiled selfish brat, and I understand wanting him gone if not for his "safety" but from the people.  But then when with his people he doesn't seem bad at all, maybe paranoid of attack but that's normal as a king.  Anvir, the stowaway, seems very good at acting.

A thing that stumped me some was time.  I'm not sure the time span between landing and the job with the Prince.  It seems a while with some things, but not long as well with other things.  I'm just not sure how long they'd been marooned on the planet.  I'm curious as they know all the right people in all the right positions.  Time passes as we go through the book, it was mentioned at beginning 23 days, and then a day her or week there, but seems like they'd been here a long time to have the knowledge of different cities.

I like the ending with where the crew ends and where the first and all the stops tie together.  This is a neat tale of science fiction crashing into a fantasy planet.  This is always something to explore, an unknown planet where anything could come to pass, even unknown monsters hidden below the land.



I read this book for an honest review.