A strong build becomes a real let down

Dark Earth by Jason Halstead

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This novel started strong - the characters were interesting, the writing good and the emotions portrayed convincing and powerful. Eric's dedication to his daughter was admirable and Jessica was appealing and interesting. There were some truly tense scenes and good horror/suspense novel fare. Then things started to go downhill. The warder was a weak and pointless character, serving only to dump some information and then essentially commit suicide in a truly stupid manner. And it deteriorated further when Jessica crossed the bridge and Eric trailed after her.

Firstly - I get the impression that Jessica crossed the bridge on her voalition - nobody had captured her or whatnot, so why was it just immediately assumed she had been captured by the Evil King (cliche)? The squalid, dark and nasty lives of the peasants seemed exaggerated and unnecessary, with the only ray of light being the Smith. Now, there's a tale I would like to hear more of. Instead, it appears as though the author no longer wanted to make much effort - plot points were rushed; emotions were told, not shown and there was repetition of phrases and other such grammatic errors that choke the plot and show that the editor lost interest about partway through (and with good reason, as so did I).

Dark Earth was nowhere near as interesting as Mundania (and can you say "rip-off", I could not help but think of Xanth and Florida). It was a generic fantasy kingdom ruled by greed. Yawn. And as for the concept of the Dark Earthians taking over our world - well, that's ridiculous, given their fickle loyalties, their selfish behaviour and their primitive weaponry, I would say it was all one big farce.

And why was Jessica - by far the most interesting character - relegated to little more than a trophy to be rescued and owned. She served no purpose and showed little initiative throughout the latter part of the plot. I would suggest that the author were to step back from the first person narrative - something like this would be much stronger were we able to see what Jessica was going through - to discover who had captured her as she went through the gate and to feel her distress at watching her father tormented.

On the plus side - the kindle version was free.



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