Dial G for Gravity by Michael Campling, subtitled The Brent Bolster Mysteries Book 1, has great sounding plot and back story, but the writing and characterization don’t live up to the promise. Let’s go to the good part first.
The plot idea is terrific: Aliens are here peacefully. The Gloabons are die-hard bureaucrats (apparently the national mania) as well as die-hard anal probers. It’s a little suspect whether they really are peaceful because their technology has pretty well wiped out ours and now we’re pretty dependent on them. Plus there is yet another alien group with a taste for live humans – for supper. There is plenty of serious stuff going on in the background.
The execution against this backdrop disappointed me. The characters are mediocre, with hero Brent, a Galactic Investigator PI, a meld of all the PI tropes you’ve ever read. The best character is the alien Rawlgeeb, a bureaucrat through and through, but good-hearted once the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed. He is the first clue that the supposedly benign Gloabons may be anything but; he greatly fears for his life when he makes a mistake abducting Brent for “sampling”, aka Probing. Apparently Gloabons that make too many mistakes end up dead or exiled to nasty places.
The writing is supposed to be humorous, and had it been the book would have been more enjoyable. A lot of other readers apparently liked this much more than I as several Amazon reviewers found the book funny and the characters well done.
The book had a great cover and this nifty of a plot background that kept me reading, thinking it would get better. Unfortunately Dial G for Gravity never lived up to its premise.
2 Stars
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