{"id":6036,"date":"2018-12-05T16:51:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T20:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6036"},"modified":"2018-12-05T16:51:15","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T20:51:15","slug":"book-review-faction-9-a-novel-of-revolution-by-james-firelocke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-faction-9-a-novel-of-revolution-by-james-firelocke\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Faction 9: A Novel of Revolution by James Firelocke"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Faction 9: A Novel of Revolution<\/em> by James Firelocke<\/p>\n

James Firelocke, 2018<\/p>\n

ISBN-13:\u00a0978-0999568293<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the surface, it seems like a great plot.\u00a0 The future United States still operates under our current political system, but has been fully hijacked by evil capitalistic pig warmongers who have made serfs (or slaves) out of most of the population.\u00a0 Small groups called \u2018factions\u2019 are fighting back behind the scenes, trying to take America back for the people, and stopping the enslavement of the population.\u00a0 If the idea had stopped there and been better written, this could have been a good book.\u00a0 However, Faction 9<\/em> makes for a lackluster reading experience.\u00a0 The plot is part of the problem: it is cluttered with unneccessary and distracting ideas, such as alien metallic insects and humans with feline DNA. These add nothing to the basic premise, and strain the story’s credibility.It will appeal to a select crowd, but would have been better suited to a comic book or graphic novel format.<\/p>\n

The use of elaborate language and cartoonish portrayals of the characters also detract from the story.\u00a0 One notable example of the language problem is saying that a character \u2018strained to achieve colonic climax\u2019 when sitting on the toilet. Character development is minimal at best, and cartoonish in the case of the villains.\u00a0 The author throws in every clich\u00e9 when describing the money-loving evildoers.\u00a0 Gold toilets, eating only steak and lobster, toilet paper with the Constitution printed on it, seeing every female as a sexual target, all people are their slaves, money is God\u2026you get the idea.\u00a0 You can\u2019t even hate the villains in this: they are so laughable you don\u2019t feel any emotion about them.\u00a0 The protagonists aren\u2019t much better. There is little backstory on how they became revolutionaries fighting for the people, and you wind up not caring what happens to them.<\/p>\n

The author does have skill, but it only comes in flashes.\u00a0 The time spent describing the foolishness of government hurdles when trying to do something as simple as changing a computer password was excellent, and his description of prisons in the future showed good imagination.\u00a0 But, those moments were too few, and it\u2019s not enough to save the story. While most readers won’t want to slog through this, the book could find a place among YA readers, or people looking for any story that involves despising conservatives, in terms of politics. It will appeal to a select crowd, but would have been better suited to a comic book or graphic novel format.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contains: mild violence and profanity<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faction 9: A Novel of Revolution by James Firelocke James Firelocke, 2018 ISBN-13:\u00a0978-0999568293 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition.     On the surface, it seems like a great plot.\u00a0 The future United States still operates under our current political system, but has been fully hijacked by evil capitalistic pig warmongers who have made serfs (or slaves)<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2474,416,3594,3595,226,763],"class_list":["post-6036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-dystopian-fiction","tag-faction-9","tag-james-firelocke","tag-science-fiction","tag-speculative-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6036"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6094,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036\/revisions\/6094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}