The Guardians, Part 1
By Linell Jeppsen and J Bryden Lloyd
This paperback includes episodes 1-6 of the series written by Jeppsen and Lloyd and is published through CreateSpace. The Guardians is 100% sci-fi, and I was glad for that, since that’s my favorite genre.
What it’s about: A malicious alien race decides Earth would be a good camping spot, with its wonderful scenery, interesting, activities, and a seemingly endless supply of food – Humans.
Look/design: The front cover shows a beautiful scene with a view of Earth from a distance beyond the moon, with a celestial event playing out above both. Perfect for the genre and story. On the flip side a very compelling blurb explains the story and draws you to it. I definitely wanted to read the book at that point. Below the blurb is a picture of the authors. Even trying to be picky, I could find no fault here. Score a perfect 20/20.
Editing/formatting: First off, the pages were laid out flawlessly, well-centered and spaced as well as right-margin justified (which I prefer). The chapter headings were great. It contained a very nice foreword, acknowledgements, and author bios. Again, excellent. The editing is where I started to find problems. Considering the typical British spellings of words such as ‘colour’, I assumed the authors were from across the pond – or even from Canada – and this vaporized some of my complaints with the language differences (their origins were absent from their bios). But there were still a few other misspellings, and more than a few grammatical errors. Most bothersome was the inconsistent use of toward/towards, and misuse of apostrophes in plurals. There were also several confusing run-on sentences. Once I decrypted all those sentences, I set my phasers to kill and obliterated five points: 15/20.
Story/content: The important part! This is where The Guardians shined. I loved the story all the way through. This is good, old-fashioned space opera. The story and premise weren't exactly unheard of, but, as with all good sci-fi, it takes you into that imaginary world where Earth really is in imminent danger from a hostile alien species. Also, there is a hint of other worlds and species intent on keeping the galaxy free of vermin as well as their struggle with pest control. But I’m not here as an emissary of the League, I’m trying to find problems and grade the work. I couldn’t really find any in the story, characters, description, or plot. All were very well done, detailed, and presented. My only complaint was there were simply 68 chapters, with no indication where any episode of the series began or ended, making for some unexpected shifts which were a little confusing. It was sorta like getting a six-piece Chicken McNuggets all compressed into one – it still tastes good, but you can’t dip them in the little barbecue sauce container that way. I kicked a point out the airlock for that: 59/60.
Summary: Overall, I gave The Guardians 94/100, and a huge ‘thumbs up’ recommendation. I don’t know how many episodes are left, but I know there are more to come, and I’m looking forward to reading them!
By Linell Jeppsen and J Bryden Lloyd
This paperback includes episodes 1-6 of the series written by Jeppsen and Lloyd and is published through CreateSpace. The Guardians is 100% sci-fi, and I was glad for that, since that’s my favorite genre.
What it’s about: A malicious alien race decides Earth would be a good camping spot, with its wonderful scenery, interesting, activities, and a seemingly endless supply of food – Humans.
Look/design: The front cover shows a beautiful scene with a view of Earth from a distance beyond the moon, with a celestial event playing out above both. Perfect for the genre and story. On the flip side a very compelling blurb explains the story and draws you to it. I definitely wanted to read the book at that point. Below the blurb is a picture of the authors. Even trying to be picky, I could find no fault here. Score a perfect 20/20.
Editing/formatting: First off, the pages were laid out flawlessly, well-centered and spaced as well as right-margin justified (which I prefer). The chapter headings were great. It contained a very nice foreword, acknowledgements, and author bios. Again, excellent. The editing is where I started to find problems. Considering the typical British spellings of words such as ‘colour’, I assumed the authors were from across the pond – or even from Canada – and this vaporized some of my complaints with the language differences (their origins were absent from their bios). But there were still a few other misspellings, and more than a few grammatical errors. Most bothersome was the inconsistent use of toward/towards, and misuse of apostrophes in plurals. There were also several confusing run-on sentences. Once I decrypted all those sentences, I set my phasers to kill and obliterated five points: 15/20.
Story/content: The important part! This is where The Guardians shined. I loved the story all the way through. This is good, old-fashioned space opera. The story and premise weren't exactly unheard of, but, as with all good sci-fi, it takes you into that imaginary world where Earth really is in imminent danger from a hostile alien species. Also, there is a hint of other worlds and species intent on keeping the galaxy free of vermin as well as their struggle with pest control. But I’m not here as an emissary of the League, I’m trying to find problems and grade the work. I couldn’t really find any in the story, characters, description, or plot. All were very well done, detailed, and presented. My only complaint was there were simply 68 chapters, with no indication where any episode of the series began or ended, making for some unexpected shifts which were a little confusing. It was sorta like getting a six-piece Chicken McNuggets all compressed into one – it still tastes good, but you can’t dip them in the little barbecue sauce container that way. I kicked a point out the airlock for that: 59/60.
Summary: Overall, I gave The Guardians 94/100, and a huge ‘thumbs up’ recommendation. I don’t know how many episodes are left, but I know there are more to come, and I’m looking forward to reading them!