Paul Kelly's Blog - Posts Tagged "great-books"
Review: The Ambassador by Hans Fisher
Hello again, dear and constant readers! Today I reckoned for a change of pace we might have a look at the work of a writer I'm starting to hear more and more about, Hans Fisher. Now, most of Mr. Fisher's work seems to be sci - fi, not usually my kind of thing, but as you'll see if you're like me then it's well worth making an exception!
The particular book I'll be looking at here is The Ambassador, easily available from your local Amazon, priced at about a dollar or 77p, depending on your locality. From the start Fisher's style is strangely intriguing - it's difficult to explain, but somehow his style of writing keeps you reading, and his descriptions, although originally sparse when dealing with our own reality, become much more detailed and entrancing when the drama shifts to the alien world.
We writers are exhorted by many to write from what we know, and given terminology used I'd say that this is what Mr. Fisher has done. The narrative concerns itself in part with the differences in language, and this indeed forms a central part of the plot, though I'll reveal no more than that at this point. Needless to say, this makes for many humourous instances and situations, too.
The 'aliens' and alien world are described in verdant and captivating prose, and Fisher is adept at building up a mental image, so that the reader can actually have a third person view on proceedings. Of course, all of this is background to the main story itself. This is perhaps the one very minor complaint I can have about the whole experience, in that occasionally we are drawn into slightly lengthy discussions of the 'how it works' side of the universe - however I am going to put this down to my lack of experience with the genre, and also point out that these explanations draw the reader deeper into the world, so this can't really be seen as a failing of the work.
All in all, the Ambassador is an interesting story that will leave you pleased to have spent the money! 8/10
The particular book I'll be looking at here is The Ambassador, easily available from your local Amazon, priced at about a dollar or 77p, depending on your locality. From the start Fisher's style is strangely intriguing - it's difficult to explain, but somehow his style of writing keeps you reading, and his descriptions, although originally sparse when dealing with our own reality, become much more detailed and entrancing when the drama shifts to the alien world.
We writers are exhorted by many to write from what we know, and given terminology used I'd say that this is what Mr. Fisher has done. The narrative concerns itself in part with the differences in language, and this indeed forms a central part of the plot, though I'll reveal no more than that at this point. Needless to say, this makes for many humourous instances and situations, too.
The 'aliens' and alien world are described in verdant and captivating prose, and Fisher is adept at building up a mental image, so that the reader can actually have a third person view on proceedings. Of course, all of this is background to the main story itself. This is perhaps the one very minor complaint I can have about the whole experience, in that occasionally we are drawn into slightly lengthy discussions of the 'how it works' side of the universe - however I am going to put this down to my lack of experience with the genre, and also point out that these explanations draw the reader deeper into the world, so this can't really be seen as a failing of the work.
All in all, the Ambassador is an interesting story that will leave you pleased to have spent the money! 8/10
