The Void was a solid read. It was a wonderful blend of Lovecraftian horror and space opera. To qualify the Lovecraftian adjective, this is not a Cthulhu Mythos story, but I believe it may have suffered if it were. It stands on its own, with a slowly building sense of dread reminiscent of Lovecraft's work. The story is set in a very workmanlike future, one of space sailor guilds and and professional military, in which humanity has spread across the stars. The horror in this story comes from the warp technology used to traverse space. While in warp, everyone experiences mysterious dreams, similar yet tailored to an individuals' own fears. The dreams have been known to cause murder and madness, and in a very Voldemort move all of humankind has chosen to never speak of them. If I had to point out a shortcoming of this book, I'd say that I'd prefer to have the characters a bit more fleshed out. We get details of their past that ties them into the story, but overall not much in terms of making them whole people. In the end, I really enjoyed the story. If sci-fi and horror are favorites of yours, this book is right up your alley. Note that I won a copy from First Reads. I got this book through Goodreads First Reads.I thought that the summary of this book sounded interesting--a futuristic society that can travel throughout space using warp, but to use warp, passengers must sleep, and with sleep comes the dreams...which prey on your fears. I had high expectations, but I was disappointed.First of all, there is pretty much no character development, so I didn't care at all for any of the characters. The whole time I was reading it, I thought that if any of them died, I wouldn't even care. Character development is crucial for stories, especially horror stories.The author's writing style got on my nerves. In addition to many grammatical errors, he would very frequently use sentence fragments. I guess he thought it gave it a nice touch, but I thought it was annoying. His descriptions were lengthy and redundant, even to the point of using the same word again to describe something, or to describe something repeatedly, just with a myriad of synonyms. He also had a bad case of "telling, not showing," in which he would just tell you what happened instead of showing it to you and letting you experience it for yourself. He had this tendency to try to be all suspenseful and sneaky in order to lead up to things, but by doing so, you never really get the full impact of a situation...the characters might freak out over something, but he won't explain why, so readers are left in the dark, wondering about what happened and not really caring.The book was slow and boring and didn't get even somewhat interesting until they finally go onto the derelict ship, which is slightly halfway through the book, and it did get sort of good after that, at least compared to the beginning of the book. Seriously, readers shouldn't have to wait that long for it to get interesting. I only finished this book because I won it in a giveaway, so I felt obligated. Otherwise, I would have stopped after just a couple of chapters. My brother and sister couldn't get through it, though. The only positive things I can say about the book is that I really liked the cover, and the story was a unique idea that had potential, but the writing just fell flat. If you are really into science fiction adult novels, you might like it, but don't get your hopes up.
What do You think about The Void (2012)?
Some bad science, but overlook-able. Enjoyable. Shades of Event Horizon.
—karen
His storytelling is only getting better and I can't wait to finish it.
—Keisha
I was selected to receive an ebook copy on LibraryThing. :)
—sanxu
