Hyperearth by Marco Marek
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Book Summary:
A castle within the city of Lubena holds a secret: a portal to the alternate world of Hyperearth. Mary and Martina encounter beings that range from the curious to the dangerous. They must save their newfound friends and defeat the evil Sathon. Will they solve the quest and make it out in time? Or will they remain in Hyperearth forever?
Book Review:
Marco Marek has tried to weave a story that takes the reader to an unheard and wondrous dimension called Hyperearth. He has made Hyperearth a very vivid and colorful place which is under the control of a heinous villain, Sathon but has other kind and spirited characters such as Bear, Hennig, the story teller, and troublesome Kestrel. The premise of the story is the visit of 2 girls, Mary and Martina, to Hyperearth and how they help defeat evil and restore peace in Hyperearth.
Despite Marek’s colorful imagination, the plot seemed to move forward in a very mechanical way for the first half. And the characters lack life and personality – they just are. These two points together made Hyperearth an extremely dry read for me in the beginning.
However, the latter half of the story proved much more interesting with twists and turns as the plot thickened. I would also like to add that I thoroughly enjoyed all the short stories that were being narrated within the plot by the character, Hennig. They were more like short stories for kids and were adorable.
During the first half, I also felt that a lot of things were left vague in the story, like the age of the characters or the time period or location in which the story takes place – whether this is to add to the mystery, I do not know, but to be honest, I found it a bit annoying. But that might just be me, I’m a very curious reader who asks a hundred different ‘what’s’ and ‘why’s’.
Another thing that I found bothersome was that a lot of words seemed misused or misplaced. This might be because English is not the author’s first language but a good copy editor should be able to fix this. But what I also found odd was a lot of sentences and conversations that did not serve any purpose – the plot, character development, humor – I couldn’t find why those snippets were in the book at all; apparently this book was something of a translation and I imagine it makes more sense in the original edition of the book.
I would recommend the author to get a good copy editor or a co-author who could optimize his creativity to tell his stories in a better shape. As for the readers, if you love fantasy books and are not complete grammar Nazis, you would enjoy this book.
*A review copy was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review*
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