I’ve read and enjoyed Snowball by the author before, so this was a pretty easy selection. And, mostly, a worthy one.
A conceptually terrifying tale of the high costs of renewable energy. Or something to that extent. As if Maine wasn’t made creepy enough by genre literature to begin with, now there’s this…on a small island off the cost of it something strange is going on with their newly erected wind turbines. And effect they call a shadow flicker. It isn’t inexplicable, it has to do with the sun reflecting off the turbine and creating a high potency sort of flicker. It drives the island denizens nearest to it to distraction. But they are not the only ones. And the madness this flicker seems to induce varies from individual to individual. Some get sad, some get mad, some get dangerous. Some get litigious. Enter an insurance investigator from the mainland, a fish out of water in every way, from his brown skin to his sexual orientation, the author really ramped up his protagonist’s otherness here. The man’s job is simple – talk to the locals, gather the information pertinent to the potential lawsuit, get out. It seemed like a good idea, a good assignment for the time being, a nice getaway from an abruptly and brutally dissolved relationship. Until it wasn’t. Until the assignment proved to be more complicated then possibly imagined. Some might even say otherworldly. So, conceptually this certainly lives up to its promise. It’s a fun, exciting and original tale. Kudos there. Writing wise is where it gets tricky. Mind you, Bastinaelli is, in theory, a pretty good writer, he understands the importance of character development, pacing, basic story dynamics and all that well. So, the sum total ends up like a perfectly readable and coherent story. But the individual sentences - the metaphorical trees of this forest - leave a lot to be desired. Now, a fair disclaimer, I read a Netgalley ARC of this book, it is entirely possible that the book hadn’t made it to the final round of edits before offered (although this particular publisher is usually good about that), but the version of the book I read had strikingly clunky sentences all over it. From compound ones to ones that started with a but, not one but two in a row back-to-back, from just weird stiltedness and frequent repetitiveness…this book screamed for editor’s attention. The weird thing is that it still worked overall as a novel, it just jarred you now and again with the incongruity of quality of the individual elements when compared to project at large. Kind of like a person with individually unattractive features that still presents like a decent looking individual. And, since my reviews are meant to reflect personal reading experience first and foremost (with overall semi-objective opinion of the book as second), it must be rated accordingly, which is to say good story with writing that, at times (not always), left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, fun was had and Bastianelli continues to be an author worth watching and this book is worth reading if only for the really exciting idea behind it. Gotta love reading a book uncertain of where it’s going, all the surprises that comes with. Thanks Netgalley.
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