Immortal Dawn by Bradly Byykkonen

Introduction

A guest review from Bobby Treat. Check out his website at DeepSpaceCorps.com.

Immortal Dawn is a better version of what many good sciFi works tried to be, especially “Star Wars” and “Stranger in a Strange Land” — without being in any way a copy of them.

The dahl’tyar is a better version of the Force, the dahlu’nar are a better version of the Jedi (who are incredibly ineffectual until they turn evil), and the isola’nar are better versions of the uselessly suicided (in effect) Obi-Wan Kenobi. Qassi, the 14-yr-old heroine, is already awesome as a mortal, and later she’s a better version of Heinlein’s Michael Valentine — infinitely self-aware and destined to lead others to enlightenment.

I’d change very little, but I do have a list of minor items.

• Most of all, I’d like to have seen more of the mortal Qassi. She’s already awesome and would be an interesting character in any book.

• It felt wrong early on when one of the enemy mordeb’nar spends a surprising amount of time and energy considering philosophical questions the mordeb’nar simply do not (by definition) think about. Qassi and Vinson later convince a couple of them they should, but Imordrielc does it on her own with no prompting. It’s needed to justify a later, fairly important event, but her soul-searching goes on a bit too long.

• Qassi’s disciples have a shockingly hard time holding on to their enlightenment.

• I could have done without the devilish arcturuz. Qassi and others constantly say power comes from knowing and accepting the truth, and accepting the truth corrects corruption. How then can the arcturuz be powerful?

• Powerful is not quite the right word, and it’s used a LOT. Aware might be better. Awareness is the only power needed.

I loved the book, and I recommend it to anyone, lovers of thoughtful philosophical/sociological sciFi especially. There are too few of us left, perhaps, but I hope this book reaches every last one of us.

Note: There were minor editing issues which the author immediately responded to. He indicated that they are fixed in the updated version of the book.

About the author

Immortal Dawn is the author's debut novel. Find out more about him on Goodreads or at his website.

#GuestPost #5star #ScienceFiction #Adult