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ARK
It is four thousand years since the Spore returned to feed on the living. Now, beneath the shadow of the ancient Harbingers, man has been forced to live most of their lives underground. . . but not all. On a small island is Etinox, a city beneath the watchful eyes of the Techpriests of the Tower.
Iaya, a young resident of Etinox, decides to risk the dangers of the Moon Wood to save her terminally ill mother. She has been told all her life that God lives in the mountains outside the wood. Iaya learns that God is something else entirely.
She is given a message that forever changes her life.
Find Ark.
Meanwhile, upon the Dead Continent, war is coming. The Harbingers fight for the possession of Ark. It is their birthright, and only one can win it as a prize.
Iaya, a young resident of Etinox, decides to risk the dangers of the Moon Wood to save her terminally ill mother. She has been told all her life that God lives in the mountains outside the wood. Iaya learns that God is something else entirely.
She is given a message that forever changes her life.
Find Ark.
Meanwhile, upon the Dead Continent, war is coming. The Harbingers fight for the possession of Ark. It is their birthright, and only one can win it as a prize.
- GenresScience FictionFantasy
362 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2013
6 people are currently reading
112 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 14, 2015
I made it through 40% of the book.
Sadly, I just lost interest in the story. By the 40 percent mark or 165 pages, you learn very little about the characters. All of them seem to stay entirely within the moment at all times with no insights or memories or anything of what has happened before this book began. The main character Iaya, who has an interesting story, was a total mystery to me. Add in a ridiculous number of POV shifts and I just stopped caring what happened in this book.
Iaya snuck out of her home town to venture out into the wilderness to find god, an entity named Enti. Deus ex machina, god finds her and reveals he is not a god but a machine then injects her with some nano message embedded in her blood. When she is returned home, a religious order inhabiting a vast structure called the Tower, desire to read the message but aren't sure how. She is imprisoned in the Tower and experimented on and tortured for ten years until she is a young woman.
The religious order discovers that the message leads them to something called Ark, on a distant continent, and a journey begins. Somehow, Iaya befriends her captors and torturers to go on this journey together.
The world-building is very interesting and original, combining what felt like Middle Ages technology with futuristic nano-technology. There are even steam mechs, which was a bit of a red flag. The weird clashing of technologies and ideas from different eras is a common trait of steampunk, a highly specialized niche of sci-fi. The descriptions were uneven, leaving the reader to fill in a lot of the blanks in certain scenes. For a world this unique and bizarre, the reader needs a lot more help.
The problem is I never got a frame of reference. There is a stunning lack of context for a speculative fiction novel. The characters had great knowledge of energy weapons and nano but were confused by primitive tech such as the steam mech. The commoners were utterly baffled by modern technology. The author's portrayal of religion, blending it with technology was interesting but a total head scratcher. These advanced monks or techpriests talked of communing with the ancestors while handling energy weapons and nano warmers.
If it was meant to be absurd, it just wasn't funny or ironic.
The biggest problem was the lack of character development or context. None of them came to life and didn't seem to come from anywhere. The background, biographies, memories, and all the other important backstopping just never comes through. Sometimes it takes a few chapters, but after 160 pages it went nowhere. If it came after that, all I can say is the author should've moved it closer to the front.
I give it 2 stars because the writing style is solid and readable. Plus the author is clearly creative. You get the feeling he is a project or two away from writing something really special.
Sadly, I just lost interest in the story. By the 40 percent mark or 165 pages, you learn very little about the characters. All of them seem to stay entirely within the moment at all times with no insights or memories or anything of what has happened before this book began. The main character Iaya, who has an interesting story, was a total mystery to me. Add in a ridiculous number of POV shifts and I just stopped caring what happened in this book.
Iaya snuck out of her home town to venture out into the wilderness to find god, an entity named Enti. Deus ex machina, god finds her and reveals he is not a god but a machine then injects her with some nano message embedded in her blood. When she is returned home, a religious order inhabiting a vast structure called the Tower, desire to read the message but aren't sure how. She is imprisoned in the Tower and experimented on and tortured for ten years until she is a young woman.
The religious order discovers that the message leads them to something called Ark, on a distant continent, and a journey begins. Somehow, Iaya befriends her captors and torturers to go on this journey together.
The world-building is very interesting and original, combining what felt like Middle Ages technology with futuristic nano-technology. There are even steam mechs, which was a bit of a red flag. The weird clashing of technologies and ideas from different eras is a common trait of steampunk, a highly specialized niche of sci-fi. The descriptions were uneven, leaving the reader to fill in a lot of the blanks in certain scenes. For a world this unique and bizarre, the reader needs a lot more help.
The problem is I never got a frame of reference. There is a stunning lack of context for a speculative fiction novel. The characters had great knowledge of energy weapons and nano but were confused by primitive tech such as the steam mech. The commoners were utterly baffled by modern technology. The author's portrayal of religion, blending it with technology was interesting but a total head scratcher. These advanced monks or techpriests talked of communing with the ancestors while handling energy weapons and nano warmers.
If it was meant to be absurd, it just wasn't funny or ironic.
The biggest problem was the lack of character development or context. None of them came to life and didn't seem to come from anywhere. The background, biographies, memories, and all the other important backstopping just never comes through. Sometimes it takes a few chapters, but after 160 pages it went nowhere. If it came after that, all I can say is the author should've moved it closer to the front.
I give it 2 stars because the writing style is solid and readable. Plus the author is clearly creative. You get the feeling he is a project or two away from writing something really special.
January 21, 2021
Really enjoyed this debut novel, the author clearly has a talent for fantasy writing and world-building, and with a bit of fine tuning I’m sure his next work will turn out even better!
Positives firstly. Loved the mashup between steampunk tech and the old-school ways like travelling on animals and boats - this made for a really clear setting of the different levels of society in the various cities visited. The juxtaposition of the Techpriests, a hybrid of science and faith, was very neat too.
The plot rolls along at a good pace throughout, weaving between different viewpoints (which you get used to quickly, especially if you’ve read A Song of Ice and Fire or suchlike) to control the development of events and leave a well-balanced amount of curiosity as to what happens to the characters. I liked the heroes too, especially Ka-Pia, and felt Iaya was well written and provided a genuine experience of how a 17 year old girl would be feeling when confronted with all manner of situations in a hostile land, the Dead Continent, beautifully created by the author.
A few areas for improvement and refinement too. Obviously this is a self-published work and so there are inevitably typos etc but this does impede the immersion in the world - the number of times Hooplah is spelled ‘Hoolpah’ is quite upsetting! I would have liked to get to know the characters’ backstories a bit more too - as another reviewer stated, it felt like they were very much living in the moment, and in a 400 page book there should certainly be space to delve into their history in a bit of detail.
I also found that the author used the characters’ names too frequently, when it was already explicit who he was describing and a simple ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’ would have read better, but this is a minor bug.
On the whole, a really enjoyable read. I hope the author continues this series as I’m very curious to see how the story progresses from here.
Positives firstly. Loved the mashup between steampunk tech and the old-school ways like travelling on animals and boats - this made for a really clear setting of the different levels of society in the various cities visited. The juxtaposition of the Techpriests, a hybrid of science and faith, was very neat too.
The plot rolls along at a good pace throughout, weaving between different viewpoints (which you get used to quickly, especially if you’ve read A Song of Ice and Fire or suchlike) to control the development of events and leave a well-balanced amount of curiosity as to what happens to the characters. I liked the heroes too, especially Ka-Pia, and felt Iaya was well written and provided a genuine experience of how a 17 year old girl would be feeling when confronted with all manner of situations in a hostile land, the Dead Continent, beautifully created by the author.
A few areas for improvement and refinement too. Obviously this is a self-published work and so there are inevitably typos etc but this does impede the immersion in the world - the number of times Hooplah is spelled ‘Hoolpah’ is quite upsetting! I would have liked to get to know the characters’ backstories a bit more too - as another reviewer stated, it felt like they were very much living in the moment, and in a 400 page book there should certainly be space to delve into their history in a bit of detail.
I also found that the author used the characters’ names too frequently, when it was already explicit who he was describing and a simple ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’ would have read better, but this is a minor bug.
On the whole, a really enjoyable read. I hope the author continues this series as I’m very curious to see how the story progresses from here.
January 8, 2019
Can’t quite decide what it wants to be.
A somewhat jumbled story that seems to jump between genres. Quite a few grammatical and vocabulary errors (“lesson” instead of “lessen”, for example). Perhaps it will all come together in the next books of the series, but I’m not about to read them.
A somewhat jumbled story that seems to jump between genres. Quite a few grammatical and vocabulary errors (“lesson” instead of “lessen”, for example). Perhaps it will all come together in the next books of the series, but I’m not about to read them.
August 30, 2016
The story was well written, the world created was very interesting, the characters seemed to get just to the point where I would care about them and their story was over, I really wanted to feel more connection to the characters, although they seemed to be coming into their own at the end.
For the originality alone this was an interesting read, I don't find myself comparing the overtones to well known mythology or religion. The action scenes were easy to follow and enjoyable. The locations were well described, I was able to paint clear pictures and the author didn't take unneeded pages to do it.
Without getting into spoilers, the story was mostly about Iaya a girl that is gifted powers she doesn't want while searching for help for her mother. That decision puts her in a situation where she becomes the center of this story. Other characters we meet are Proctor, Ka-Pia, and Makael (there are many more but these were the ones I liked). Each of these characters are very different and with the exception, in my opinion, of Ka-Pia we fully understand their emotions and motives.
As for the main villain, Asylum, he was interesting but I finished the book really wanting to know more of his back-story.
My biggest gripe was with the ebook, not the story itself, and that was the lack of a glossary for all of the terminology. The world created here has a lot of terminology. All of it is explained but some of the terms get used before a full explanation is given and I found myself looking for a glossary, which only contained 4 words in my version.
This book is clearly a starting point for a bigger plot. I plan to pick up the next book in the series, as I really want to know where this is going.
For the originality alone this was an interesting read, I don't find myself comparing the overtones to well known mythology or religion. The action scenes were easy to follow and enjoyable. The locations were well described, I was able to paint clear pictures and the author didn't take unneeded pages to do it.
Without getting into spoilers, the story was mostly about Iaya a girl that is gifted powers she doesn't want while searching for help for her mother. That decision puts her in a situation where she becomes the center of this story. Other characters we meet are Proctor, Ka-Pia, and Makael (there are many more but these were the ones I liked). Each of these characters are very different and with the exception, in my opinion, of Ka-Pia we fully understand their emotions and motives.
As for the main villain, Asylum, he was interesting but I finished the book really wanting to know more of his back-story.
My biggest gripe was with the ebook, not the story itself, and that was the lack of a glossary for all of the terminology. The world created here has a lot of terminology. All of it is explained but some of the terms get used before a full explanation is given and I found myself looking for a glossary, which only contained 4 words in my version.
This book is clearly a starting point for a bigger plot. I plan to pick up the next book in the series, as I really want to know where this is going.
March 21, 2014
The author built a deep, complex, and totally plausible world. He has relevant backstory that literally goes millions of years back. The action sequences are ferocious and written with a vividness that makes you feel you're almost watching a blockbuster movie. But I didn't have trouble taking long pauses between reading--it wasn't hard to put the book down at all.
The plot points hold surprises, but in the end they didn't shock or move me emotionally. That's because despite the intense setting and specifics, I had a hard time caring about the people. The prologue connected me to the little girl. But then we rarely see her thoughts and feelings in a meaningful way. Only about 2/3 of the way through the book did we truly spend any real time with her inner experience. The book jumps between characters so quickly that it's hard to know who to root for. And while there are pages and pages for each action sequence, there are usually only paragraphs on their thoughts or feelings.
The ending leaves enough open that the second book could be even better. He certainly has a rich enough world to play in. I'm hoping this is just a setup story and a more personal story in this epic setting can emerge.
The plot points hold surprises, but in the end they didn't shock or move me emotionally. That's because despite the intense setting and specifics, I had a hard time caring about the people. The prologue connected me to the little girl. But then we rarely see her thoughts and feelings in a meaningful way. Only about 2/3 of the way through the book did we truly spend any real time with her inner experience. The book jumps between characters so quickly that it's hard to know who to root for. And while there are pages and pages for each action sequence, there are usually only paragraphs on their thoughts or feelings.
The ending leaves enough open that the second book could be even better. He certainly has a rich enough world to play in. I'm hoping this is just a setup story and a more personal story in this epic setting can emerge.
March 6, 2014
A complex tapestry woven by a master storyteller, March 5, 2014
Review by Daniel Sinclair Pearson
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: ARK (The Natural Selection Trilogy) (Kindle Edition)
Techno/Steampunk/Sci-Fi/Sorcery and Fantasy all woven masterfully together. (Ark) by Mark Dunstan defies a simple description. From page one I was immediately immersed in another world. Mysterious, amazing and complex story that is full to the brim with dark and exotic characters, intrigue and danger lurk at very twist and turn of this none stop action packed epic. This would make a great movie series and it will become a cult classic quickly. I can't wait to read the next two books.
Review by Daniel Sinclair Pearson
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: ARK (The Natural Selection Trilogy) (Kindle Edition)
Techno/Steampunk/Sci-Fi/Sorcery and Fantasy all woven masterfully together. (Ark) by Mark Dunstan defies a simple description. From page one I was immediately immersed in another world. Mysterious, amazing and complex story that is full to the brim with dark and exotic characters, intrigue and danger lurk at very twist and turn of this none stop action packed epic. This would make a great movie series and it will become a cult classic quickly. I can't wait to read the next two books.
March 10, 2014
This is a great story. Original. Iaya, Procter, and the others just get to you. I'm anxiously waiting for number 2.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews