About This Blog


This blog was started as a place to post book reviews. The books reviewed here will be mixed. Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, General Fiction, NonFiction and more. Both positve and negative reviews will be posted, as well as reviews for books written for all ages and all reading levels.

Many of the books reviewed here are ones that I have purchased for my own reading pleasure. Some, I receive free in exchange for reviews. Beginning in December, 2009 you will know which are the free ones if you read the final paragraph of my reviews.

Also of note: I choose what I will read, attempting to avoid the books on which I would end up writing a negative review... but I have been known to make mistakes. Thus you see some one and two star reviews here. Since I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, I only write them if the review was promised, or if the book was so exceedingly bad, I just had to say so. Regardless of the percentage of positive to negative reviews on this blog, I give my honest opinion each and every time, and have never received financial compensation for posting my reviews.

Note that, except for fair use portions quoted from some of the books reviewed, all copyright in the content of the reviews belongs to Lady Dragoness.


Tuesday, June 11, 2013

A Dystopian World That Seems All Too Possible

The Digital Sea is an intriguing dystopian novel with sufficient plot and character development to hook the reader within a few pages. Those who like science fiction, mystery and/or techno-thrillers will enjoy this novel. The Digital Sea is also the first novel of a trilogy; this becomes very apparent at the end of the novel when the story arc concludes but subtly suggests that soon there will be other events to disrupt the normal life of Zel Aurora and her daughter.

The characters are not all introduced together, but each is featured in his/her own chapter at the beginning which also includes some backstory for each member of the vast cast of this novel. This type of construction makes the story difficult to follow in the beginning, but perseverance is worthwhile. Readers having difficulty with the number and mission(s) of the characters may wish to make a cheat sheet.

While reading this novel, I noted that some of the transitions from one chapter to the next were not as smoothly accomplished as I could have wished. This is particularly true in the beginning, but I also noted a similar effect between the last few chapters. It is less apparent in the middle of the book. The rough transitions did not detract from my over-all enjoyment of the book.

Note for those intending to read the next two novels in this series: Start with The Digial Sea, so that you will have sufficient indoctrination into this world to enjoy the followups.

This review also appears on LibraryThing, and on Amazon.com as well as any other appropriate place I may find to post it.

FTC regulations require the following disclosure: This novel was received free from the author in exchange for this review. Despite the above statement, I want the reader to know the following as well: I chose to read The Digital Sea because I wanted to read it. I was not obligated in any way to accept the author's offer of the free copy. The above review (excluding this paragraph) is worded exactly the same as it would have been worded had I chosen to purchase my copy of this book. Receiving a free copy of the novel has not altered my opinion of the author's work. This review contains my honest opinion of the book, for which I have received no financial compensation.