Review: Terminal Core

Terminal Core by Lynn Steigleder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Before I get into a full review of Terminal Core, I wish to write a quick preface. You see, I love science fiction books. I cannot get enough of them. Every so often I will go on a science fiction binge and such is pretty much all I will read for weeks. However, I am extremely picky when it comes to my science fiction reads. In all honesty, it’s probably the genre I rate the harshest. I’m not sure why this is, but such is the case. My love for the genre combined with my pickiness with such stories results in harsh reviews. I am trying to overcome this, though. With Terminal Core, I found the book didn’t quite reach the full four star rating. However, as I’m overly harsh with my science fiction ratings, I decided to round the rating up to four stars instead of rounding it down to three. To do such a thing would have been overly harsh of me, and I am trying to be nicer with my ratings.

For me, I found Terminal Core to be a really original read. The synopsis left me unsure of how the story would play out, leaving me fearful that it would read like a couple of other science fiction books I have read, yet once I started reading I realised this was a very unique book. The way in which the story develops, the scenes that play out, and the events that occur make for a very refreshing read. All in all, it was quite different from many of the science fiction books I usually find myself reading.

For starters, the world building was very interesting. In science fiction novels, one of two things can happen: we spend our time on planet earth with advances in technology, or we go off into space and rarely get a look at what earth is like. With this one, we come to understand both earth and a new planet. In fact, both are connected in ways many do not seem to know about. I’ll admit to being somewhat confused at first, unsure as to what was going on with the planets – but as the story progressed, the layers of mystery slowly unravelled to create a wonderful story.

In fact, the layers of mystery were my favourite thing. You were constantly left with questions regarding events and characters. You were never quite sure as to what piece of information would come about next. Ideas were constantly forming, possibilities continued to grow, but you were never quite sure as to what was to come next. It was a lot of fun watching everything come together, and I really enjoyed the way certain aspects were completely unpredictable. Throughout, I was desperate to understand all the different aspects of the storyline.

What prevented me from truly enjoying the book is a very personal view. You see, I enjoy nice long chapters. I want to jump into pages and pages of storyline that follow the same character. With this one, we have a lot of different characters with different storylines being told. This is a lot of fun, I cannot deny that, but the way in which the stories are told determines how enjoyable they are. For me, I found I was never really pulled into their stories the way I wanted to be. You knew all the characters would be coming together at some point, and it wasn’t until they started to come together that I found myself completely immersed in their storylines. Prior to the coming together of characters, the chapters were much too short for my liking. We’d have a handful of pages for a chapter before moving on to a new character, thus preventing me from falling as deep into the world as I would have liked to be. As I said, though, this is just a personal view. Some people really enjoy short chapters, but for me I like chapters to be much longer. The occasional short chapter is fine, but I find it hard to engage completely when chapters are all so short and jump between the characters.

Honestly, the storylines were all so enjoyable. I just wish we hadn’t jumped from one to the other so quickly and so often. They were all such interesting characters, and each had an air of mystique about them, that it was hard not to want to spend more time following their stories as we awaited answers to what they knew and what they were hiding.

I also felt like the ending was a little bit on the quick side. I really enjoyed the way everything came together, but in comparison to the rest of the book, the ending was all very sudden. It simply felt a bit too quick and easy, compared to the complexity of the book as a whole. It was enjoyable, yes, but I would have liked a wee bit more.

Overall, though, it was an enjoyable read. Very unique and interesting. It’s certainly worth a read if you’re looking for something different to the norm.

As a final note, I would like to thank the author for allowing me to read this in exchange for a review.

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