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The Perils of Forgotten Pain #1
The Perils of Forgotten Pain: Part 1
Herman, a cyborg soldier, has overcome illness and discovered much about the society he used to fight for that unnerves him. Now he must ultimately decide where his loyalties lie-with the space dwelling society who designed him to be an efficient killer, or with a kind man who tells him that he should take the opportunity to live on his own terms.
133 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 22, 2025
After having enjoyed the prequel, this book was a disappointment. To those wondering - no, you actually don't have to read the prequel before this one. Due to the author not including character names in the prequel's summary, I assumed the prequel was about the same MCs as book 1 and that it was necessary reading, but it's not. In fact, the prequel takes places hundreds of years before Book 1. In this installment, humanity did go extinct (as we knew they would when the prequel ended) and hundreds of years have passed, during which the super fertilizer did its thing and the planet healed from the nuclear devastation. Earth has been inhabitable again for a few decades but humanity's original plan to return to earth has changed a lot over the past centuries. Humanity's societies have existed in space for hundreds of years at this point and the government(s?) are keen to keep things as they are. So when a random dude sets up shop on earth and says he'll welcome anybody else who wants to come support him, the space government ain't too pleased about that and they launch an attack on the leader and his supporters, using their cyborg soldiers. The war has been fought in space for the past 20 years but now the space-dwelling humans have decided to launch a final attack by sending cyborgs down to earth, which is the first time Herman ever steps foot on the planet of his ancestors. The situation is much more complicated than that, but basically the events of the prequel don't really matter.
The MCs were a great matchup. Like in the prequel, one MC is kind of a dork who enjoys using his brain more than his not-very existent brawn and the other MC is a trained soldier. In a neat demonstration of how technology has advanced since the prequel, Herman has a lot more tech implanted in him than Aldric did, who only had a semi-useful prosthetic arm. Herman's implants are so numerous and so advanced that he's considered a cyborg, despite having been born fully human and having undergone enhancement surgeries in his late teens.
Herman and Blaze are such an odd and opposite match that they start out being enemies. More specifically - Herman can't stand Blaze and doesn't hesitate to let him know. He thinks Blaze is extremely annoying and useless. Blaze is a ray of sunshine who tries to do his best when he's forcibly matched up on a military mission with Herman but he has a lot of trouble getting Herman to respect him. Herman's actions towards Blaze are pretty terrible and for much of the book, Herman bullies Blaze. Even when Herman sees what Blaze's skills are and how good of a person he is, Herman still struggles treating Blaze like a decent human being, but I loved that character arc. In particular, it was great having Herman slowly develop romantic feelings for Blaze and not having a clue how to react to those unfamiliar feelings except by lashing out in violence - which he knew Blaze didn't deserve.
For the first half, the story was exactly my cup of tea. The entire story is from Herman's POV, which is essential. There's a lot happening that Herman doesn't know about or doesn't understand so being stuck in his head helped the author pull off a lot of tense scenes and great plot twists. One of the main plotlines in the first part is Herman getting mysteriously ill. He has symptoms similar to a flu but since he's a cyborg, he shouldn't be capable of getting ill. The way Blaze tries to help him and offers sympathy, comfort and endless handkerchiefs while Herman alternates being grateful with taking out his frustrations on Blaze was a really great way for them to bond. In addition, the author constantly kept the story going in the first half - revealing the truth behind Herman's illness, revealing the truth behind who Blaze really is and what his role in the situation is, adding mysterious clues that hint at bigger issues - and that awesome pacing combined with Herman and Blaze's slowly developing romance made me very happy.
Unfortunately, the author seemed to forget that the story was supposed to be a romance at the midway point. Throughout the entire story, the main arc isn't the romance - it's Herman coming to the realization that his entire existence has been filled with lies and everything he knows is just space government propaganda. He and Blaze unravel many of the complex lies Herman has been told and I love how the author paced all of that and how it all wove together. While all of that was interesting, the romance development between the MCs stalled out and there was zero progression in the second half. In fact - I felt a strong friendship vibe between them more than anything else. I know there's another book after this one but there wasn't a good reason for the romance not to move along faster and for the MCs to get together in this book so I felt a bit cheated that the romance was put in the slow lane for the second half.
In addition - I didn't care for the random addition of fantasy aspects. This series is firmly rooted in military dystopian sci-fi and that's the genre I expected it to stay in. So when we find out that Blaze is a magician who can do actual magic, my enthusiasm for the story waned. Specifically, I was annoyed that the magical aspects weren't even hinted at in the summary, which would have allowed me to brace myself for the genre mixing and decide if I was in the mood for it. Unfortunately for the author - when it comes to military sci-fi, I don't want any genre mixing. I honestly thought we'd find out that magic didn't actually exist and Blaze was using some weird tech that Herman didn't know about. But nope - he's an actual magician and magic apparently exists on this new version of earth. I also thought that the king business was corny. In the prequel, the author did a good job emphasizing that the MCs were living in only one part of the world but the humans who remained on earth were struggling the same way everywhere. But it doesn't make sense that only one random dude would decide to return to earth (and go against the space government) and that others would follow him and go along with the dude calling himself The King. To be fair to the author, maybe having the dude being referred to as just The King throughout the story was to hide his real identity and that reveal would be a major twist in book 2 but I wish the author hadn't chosen such a specific title that comes with a lot of connotations, none of which have anything to do with dystopian military sci-fi.
Overall, I'm really impressed with the way the author paced the reveal of various truths behind Herman's life and how these things change Herman's views about many things. I also enjoyed the sci-fi related details regarding Herman's various implants and how he uses them. But the lack of romance and the weird genre mish-mashing wasn't my thing. Unfortunately, I'm not going to bother reading the second book.
The MCs were a great matchup. Like in the prequel, one MC is kind of a dork who enjoys using his brain more than his not-very existent brawn and the other MC is a trained soldier. In a neat demonstration of how technology has advanced since the prequel, Herman has a lot more tech implanted in him than Aldric did, who only had a semi-useful prosthetic arm. Herman's implants are so numerous and so advanced that he's considered a cyborg, despite having been born fully human and having undergone enhancement surgeries in his late teens.
Herman and Blaze are such an odd and opposite match that they start out being enemies. More specifically - Herman can't stand Blaze and doesn't hesitate to let him know. He thinks Blaze is extremely annoying and useless. Blaze is a ray of sunshine who tries to do his best when he's forcibly matched up on a military mission with Herman but he has a lot of trouble getting Herman to respect him. Herman's actions towards Blaze are pretty terrible and for much of the book, Herman bullies Blaze. Even when Herman sees what Blaze's skills are and how good of a person he is, Herman still struggles treating Blaze like a decent human being, but I loved that character arc. In particular, it was great having Herman slowly develop romantic feelings for Blaze and not having a clue how to react to those unfamiliar feelings except by lashing out in violence - which he knew Blaze didn't deserve.
For the first half, the story was exactly my cup of tea. The entire story is from Herman's POV, which is essential. There's a lot happening that Herman doesn't know about or doesn't understand so being stuck in his head helped the author pull off a lot of tense scenes and great plot twists. One of the main plotlines in the first part is Herman getting mysteriously ill. He has symptoms similar to a flu but since he's a cyborg, he shouldn't be capable of getting ill. The way Blaze tries to help him and offers sympathy, comfort and endless handkerchiefs while Herman alternates being grateful with taking out his frustrations on Blaze was a really great way for them to bond. In addition, the author constantly kept the story going in the first half - revealing the truth behind Herman's illness, revealing the truth behind who Blaze really is and what his role in the situation is, adding mysterious clues that hint at bigger issues - and that awesome pacing combined with Herman and Blaze's slowly developing romance made me very happy.
Unfortunately, the author seemed to forget that the story was supposed to be a romance at the midway point. Throughout the entire story, the main arc isn't the romance - it's Herman coming to the realization that his entire existence has been filled with lies and everything he knows is just space government propaganda. He and Blaze unravel many of the complex lies Herman has been told and I love how the author paced all of that and how it all wove together. While all of that was interesting, the romance development between the MCs stalled out and there was zero progression in the second half. In fact - I felt a strong friendship vibe between them more than anything else. I know there's another book after this one but there wasn't a good reason for the romance not to move along faster and for the MCs to get together in this book so I felt a bit cheated that the romance was put in the slow lane for the second half.
In addition - I didn't care for the random addition of fantasy aspects. This series is firmly rooted in military dystopian sci-fi and that's the genre I expected it to stay in. So when we find out that Blaze is a magician who can do actual magic, my enthusiasm for the story waned. Specifically, I was annoyed that the magical aspects weren't even hinted at in the summary, which would have allowed me to brace myself for the genre mixing and decide if I was in the mood for it. Unfortunately for the author - when it comes to military sci-fi, I don't want any genre mixing. I honestly thought we'd find out that magic didn't actually exist and Blaze was using some weird tech that Herman didn't know about. But nope - he's an actual magician and magic apparently exists on this new version of earth. I also thought that the king business was corny. In the prequel, the author did a good job emphasizing that the MCs were living in only one part of the world but the humans who remained on earth were struggling the same way everywhere. But it doesn't make sense that only one random dude would decide to return to earth (and go against the space government) and that others would follow him and go along with the dude calling himself The King. To be fair to the author, maybe having the dude being referred to as just The King throughout the story was to hide his real identity and that reveal would be a major twist in book 2 but I wish the author hadn't chosen such a specific title that comes with a lot of connotations, none of which have anything to do with dystopian military sci-fi.
Overall, I'm really impressed with the way the author paced the reveal of various truths behind Herman's life and how these things change Herman's views about many things. I also enjoyed the sci-fi related details regarding Herman's various implants and how he uses them. But the lack of romance and the weird genre mish-mashing wasn't my thing. Unfortunately, I'm not going to bother reading the second book.
March 17, 2012
Full Review: http://thetbrpile.weebly.com/1/post/2...
I admired his character for doing what he felt he should at great cost to himself and against all odds, and I was pleased with the end of the story when it looked as if he and Blaze might have a chance. Blaze himself is not as fully-realized a character as Herman, again because of the way the story is written, but some of his compassion and caring seemed to help in pushing Herman out of his "perfect soldier" mold. In all, I found this an enjoyable story and would recommend it for those who like science-fiction with romance thrown into the mix.
I admired his character for doing what he felt he should at great cost to himself and against all odds, and I was pleased with the end of the story when it looked as if he and Blaze might have a chance. Blaze himself is not as fully-realized a character as Herman, again because of the way the story is written, but some of his compassion and caring seemed to help in pushing Herman out of his "perfect soldier" mold. In all, I found this an enjoyable story and would recommend it for those who like science-fiction with romance thrown into the mix.
August 14, 2016
The start was interesting enough. A bit weird or maybe simply to short. I didn't like the short part. Nothing was solved and my feelings were mixed up. But both Herman and Blaze were interesting as a characters, but as I said, the end was to open. I would suggest to wait for next part in this series, before reading this first book.
January 26, 2015
The only fault I find with this book is that it ended too abruptly. At least I have part 2 so I can dig right in. I don't see this as a self-contained story, but I guess the title is pretty clear that it's only part 1.
June 27, 2012
This was a 3.5 for me but I rounded up. Lots of potential in this book. Good characters and I would read more from this author.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews