Title: Fusion World
Series: Philanthropy #1
Author: Joseph Tamone
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Chandra Press
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781949964004
Summary: A small band of young people must find a way to come together as a team to stop a maniac bent on the destruction of the known universe. Through the course of the story the team grows tightly knit and is ultimately successful. Raven, an assassin for the enemy, has a change of heart and joins forces with the team.
Her transformation from cold and ruthless killer to caring teammate is a focal point of the story. The metamorphic theme is one of the core components of the work. Vai, the snarky sarcastic kid, becomes a compassionate leader. Sajaler, finds that he can turn the tide in a battle without killing. Marissa learns she has what it takes to do what needs to be done. All the characters come away more mature and surer of themselves. When the dust settles after the crescendo, Cain has been stopped, but Vai and Adam are missing.
I was excited to read Fusion World because I love a good mystery. The biggest mystery was, of course, what is the Fusion World Project? Additionally, I love a good book about humans terraforming the stars. How do these humans’ progress in culture and technology? What of their culture? Is it alien or is it like ours? So, I started reading and it was definitely interesting but not what I expected.
What I liked
What Joseph Tamone excelled at was world building. I was intrigued by the different cultures from each planet and the struggles of the Rafian refugees. The characters had all been affected by the Vyndral leadership in some way and it was interesting to see how they all came together, all their different backgrounds, to go against this threat.
Tamone’s novel is very character focused with unique backgrounds for each. My favorite had to be Raven, the female assassin from a strange forested land. Her story kept me on the edge of my seat as I read about her story, her people, and what lead her to become an assassin. She starts out as nothing more than a stone cold assassin but break out of that mold to become something more. Unfortunately, she was cursed with one of the biggest weaknesses of the novel, juvenile dialogue.
What I didn’t like
My biggest problem was the dialogue. As I said before, I found the characters to be a bit juvenile. They were rude, edgy, flighty, dimwitted, and downright incompetent. On top of that, their conversations did not flow properly. It is like the characters had the attention span of a toddler.
Most of the characters were in the military so I expected some amount of professionalism. However, these characters repeatedly disrespected their superior officers and were downright incompetent most of the novel. Perhaps that is just my lack of understanding of military life but I would imagine that these characters would not last long in the military. I would imagine that the amount of downright disrespect and sass directed at a superior officer would be grounds for punishment or dismissal. I do know some people in the military and yes, they are juvenile. However, the personnel in this novel crossed a line from being believable to being completely ridiculous.
Due to the juvenile dialogue of the characters and their actions, I found it difficult to be interested in their stories. Edam had amnesia but had kept his skills at flying. Should be interesting, right? Who was this man? What happened to his memory? Well, due to his juvenile dialogue, it was hard to be interested. I felt that with each and every character. They all sounded roughly the same with similar attitudes. While Tamone did a great job with their backgrounds, he did not grab me with their dialogue.
This is more of a personal preference but I found this novel to be lacking in Science Fiction. The whole premise of the Fusion World Project more fell into the category of Science Fantasy as it has no real scientific plausibility within our own scientific understanding. Perhaps it would work in theory, but not in practice. Even outside of the project, there was a lack of Science Fiction beyond the fact that they were on a planet outside of Earth.
Verdict
I believe the novel has a lot of potential but feels unrefined and unfinished. It flows in some places and lacks in others. The climax of the story happened in the last chapter and the conclusion was extremely rushed. While it was set up for a sequel, it didn’t grab me enough to continue.
