Icefall: Episodes 1 – 6
By Walt Stone, Mica Stone
I received a free copy of Icefall: Episodes 1 – 6 from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.
save the boy… destroy the world
In the near future on a snowball Earth, rebels are poised to execute a plan that will break the sun-blocking shroud hanging above the planet…Odessa, a nineteen-year-old MEDcadet, is the sole witness to an onboard murder committed while sailing from Rhone across the Eastern Sea to Earthland. To her horror, she and her podmates–two who, like Odessa, are genetically engineered–are arrested when the ship docks… arrested by the very security force who committed the crime!
Reynal Królik, an eighteen-year-old trading post sled driver on Earthland, foils an assassin’s attempt to kill Odessa and her companions. He and his fellow messengers whisk them away to safety only to discover the two groups are on opposite sides of the rebellion’s secret mission–a mission for which Rey is the key.
It’s a mission Odessa discovers will destroy what remains of the planet. A mission she will use her tech–and her wits–to keep the boy whose life she’s saved from completing.
Summary from Goodreads.
Set in the near distance future, Earth is almost completely covered in ice and near uninhabitable. The people of Earth have split into different seperate groups. The people of Cerebus rule everything, or at least they try to. The Earthlanders serve the people of Cerebus and the people of the Jekyel Republic are outsiders who do what they want and do not want to associate with either the people of Cerebus or Earthlanders.
We follow Reynal, a Earthlander and Odessa and genetically modified citizen of Cerebus. Rey (yes I thought of Star Wars when he was first called that as well) is a glorified smuggler who works for his adoptive father. Odessa is a medical student who is on her first compulsory trip to Earthland. Both get caught up in a 200 year old plot to end the ice age that has struck the Earth.
Whilst we have these two main characters, we also have POV’s from multiple other characters. It got really confusing with all of these perspectives that did not really add to the overall story (but they did clear up what was going on). These extra POV’s all make sense by the end of this first book and tie everything together but when you are reading them I had a constant blank look on my face as to what the purpose of them was.
I was continually confused as to what was going on, with both Rey and Odessa. Up until the final few chapters so many different strings seemed to lead to nothing, and whilst they do all serve a purpose I personally do not like how they left so much unresolved for majority of it. This style did not make me connect to any of the characters as everything that was going on seemed to be for nothing.
Whilst it does set up what is to come very well, I felt that it dragged too much and could have given a bit more of what was to come a tad sooner.
2/5
Have you read Icefall: Chapter 1 – 6? Do you agree with my review? Let me know your opinion in the comments below!
Check it out on Goodreads here.
Purchase it on Amazon here.
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