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The Hyperspace Trap by Christopher G. Nuttall


Title: The Hyperspace Trap

Author: Christopher G. Nuttall

Publisher: 47North

Release Date: February 27, 2018

Genre: Adult Sci-fi

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆

*Purchase on Amazon or add the book on Goodreads

Synopsis:

A year after the Commonwealth won the war with the Theocracy, the interstellar cruise liner Supreme is on its maiden voyage, carrying a host of aristocrats thrilled to be sharing in a wondrous adventure among the stars. The passengers include the owner and his daughters, Angela and Nancy. Growing up with all the luxuries in the world, neither sister has ever known true struggle, but that all changes when a collision with a pirate ship leaves the cruiser powerless and becalmed in hyperspace. And they’re not alone.

Now, the mysterious force that’s living on this floating graveyard is coming for Supreme’s crew and passengers. As madness starts to tear at their minds, they must fight to survive in a strange alien realm.

And there’s no way out...

Review:

I had high expectations for The Hyperspace Trap. The summary hints toward a potentially fast-paced, thrilling plot line that will keep the readers wanting more. However, that wasn't the case. In the beginning of the story, there was no call-to-action, nothing to drive the story forward. The thing that did intrigue me were the world-building details. The details presented in the start of the story sounded promising, and I had hoped the world-building would make up for the slow pacing, the lack of depth in character development, and the predictable plot.

It didn't.

Later on, the world-building details became inconsistent toward the last half of the book. By this point in time, the book was dragging on. The middle of the story got caught in a slump. There was hardly any conflict to draw the reader in, and when there was conflict, the solution to that conflict was very predictable and lacked suspense.

The narrative was also inconsistent. In the first three-quarters of the book, the narrative stuck with the viewpoints from a select-few characters. Toward the end, the narrative switched to characters whose viewpoints we hadn't seen before. This made the ending seem disorganized. Also, switching the viewpoints made the ending very rushed. If the author had stuck with the original viewpoint characters he used in the beginning, then the ending would've been much more memorable.

As for the individual scenes of the book, many of the scenes were redundant. For example, there was one point in the book where a single event was told by four different viewpoints. No new knowledge was presented to the reader during that time; the repetition was there to show the characters' reactions, and all of them had very similar reactions. Redundancy like this occurred throughout the entire story. At least 50 pages could've been cut from the book.

Some of the slang and catchphrases in the book were extremely outdated for the setting of the book. The author used phrases you'd hear today, some of which are even outdated in this age, yet his story is set hundreds of years in the future. Little things like this hurt the plausibility of the world he created.

*I received an eARC through NetGalley. Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.


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