Horizon

by Douglas Rugambwa, Pharrell Douglas

I should've realized soon enough they were looking for me all my life.
I was abducted in Delhi.
Taken to Peru.
They say we are five.
They even have an army for us.
And a mission
Worldwide destruction is about to befall mankind.
And the only relic that can save us is lost 65 million years B.C.
So they brought us to the time machine.
This is why we are here.
Will you come with us?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

410 pages, ebook

First published January 11, 2014

About the author

I write because I can't stop. Do or Die. Kill or be killed. I do what I love and know no other way. I finally found something real to write about, and that is quite a gift. It's called Timelapse. Check it out.

Reviews

[Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The only way to get through is to fight through."
-General

Rating: 4 1/2

Please note that I was given a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have an identity hidden from you, kept secret because your loved ones thought it was best? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have the whole world depend on you to save it from impending doom? Well...welcome to Ivey's life! Her mother Aadrika has drug her around the country and back again, never staying in one spot for too long. Why? She won't tell her daughter. Then Ivey decides to run off, and everything is suddenly revealed to her in a crash and bang sequence! She is one of the five Zartans who are to stop tons of meteors from striking Earth, killing and destroying every piece of existence, similar to what happened to the dinosaurs. She finds out that she is part of a prophecy and then is sent back to 65,000,000 B.C. where the fate of the future rests on her shoulders.

As you can assume, this is the great time of the amazing and gruesome dinosaurs! The matrix is hidden during this period of time, and this special matrix that resembles a huge, glittering and illuminated rock like diamond is what will help the Zartans save the Earth. However, time is dwindling and there are only a few months to find it. With hope now resumed in the search with Ivey along for the ride, all seems fine and dandy...until an unexpected enemy arises among their ranks. So, now they have to find the matrix, fight the enemy, survive the dinosaurs, and save the world. What to know what happens next? Go and pick up Horizon to find out!

I love reading books from young authors. There is something about their writing style and outlook in their books that is extremely relatable to someone like me who is close to their age range. Of course, they can bring other elements to the table at the same time that allows for older or younger viewers to be drawn in, too. I believe that Douglas R. is one of these talented young writers in today's world. While I loved the initial book description, I definitely knew I was going to love it when he mentioned this special technologically advanced wrist watch that possessed all of these fancy doohickeys and Ivey decided to call it the Omnitrix after Ben 10! I loved that so much!!!!! Then he mentioned the universally loved Vampire Diaries and Three Days Grace.

Ivey was an enjoyable character. Something that really hit me as amazing was the diversity of the characters themselves. They weren't all one group of people. Some were from India, Iran, Australia, and so on. I feel like this allowed for an easy way to bond with a lot of the people presented to us. However, while I did enjoy Ivey, I believe that Aadrika was by far my favorite! Why you ask? Well, Douglas R. made me despise her in the beginning. Whether this was intentional on the authors part or not, I did. Her and her daughter were constantly at odds, and I just wasn't too keen on how she acted. Then Ivey goes off to the past, and we see more of Aadrika's story. You can then imagine from my previous statement that I quickly took to her despite my past views. I'm a huge Aadrika fan now! When an author makes me do a total 360 on a character, I definitely admire them on their skills.

If you liked Jurassic Park or any type of time travel or action movie, I highly recommend this book to you. The ending literally played out like a movie in my mind's eye. Plus, there was just a dash of romance so that we get a little bit of everything. While I wish that some parts were fleshed out a little bit more in the beginning, I am sure that that was probably for suspenseful purposes. The ending did not leave me upset with loose ends, which definitely was a plus as we all know that those type of books with open endings can be quite frustrating. All in all, the conclusion itself was beautifully written.

You can see reviews like this one and more at http://knightingalereviews.blogspot.com/.

(http://knightingalereviews.blogspot.c...)

[★ℕłℂØℓҾ★ (Nix) · Rating 2 out of 5]

***I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.***

Well, unfortunately, this book didn't do it for me. My initial thoughts were that this book was going to be a struggle and a headache to get through since right off the bat, the grammar had many mistakes, the font changed size frequently and randomly, and the word choice was frequently bizarre (people blush and smile their dialogue instead of blushing and smiling while SPEAKING their dialogue and at one point, I noticed two different people roar two sentences in a row).

What this book needs more than anything is an editor!

I really wanted to like it; the story line was interesting to me, the character of Ivey had so much potential...I just couldn't push my way through the murky writing and format to get there.

*Sigh* I don't like being the bad guy (or girl), and I debated giving this 1 star, but I added a star for the idea. It just still needs a lot of work.

[Douglas Rugambwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost did not write this book. I'm glad I did.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free eBook copy of this story for review.

Rating: 2 3/4 stars

Cons:
The writing was awkward. The sentences did not flow very well and the wrong words were often used. (It should be noted that the preview of the author's next book, Play With My Hair, included at the end of the eBook seemed to be written better, so the author appears to be improving.) The language issue was a big stumbling block for me; it made it hard to really get into the story.

The style of voice used for Ivey, the main character, made her seem like a tween or young teenager instead of an older teenager who has recently graduated from high school. There were too many stereotypes used regarding what female teenagers think about and how they act, and so I didn't connect with her very much. Ivey's voice also leaked into other characters, so that older characters like her mother or the General had times when they seemed immature and not true to their characters.

Pros:
It took me about halfway through the book to get somewhat used to the writing style and after that the story flowed better. Once the action really started going, it did not stop. There were not moments of depth that really touched me or caused me to think in a different way, but this is an adventure story and performed well as such. There were cliches used regarding character roles, but I feel that was intentional and in some cases used as comic relief (I'm looking at you, Gusto).

The cast of characters was balanced between females and males, which was refreshing. I also really appreciated the myriad of ethnicities of the characters. The point of view switches throughout the book between a few characters and in most instances, besides some language issues, this was well done and entertaining and helped to move the story along.

All in all, Horizon may be rough around the edges but the heart of it still shines through as a fun adventure story.

[Carol Clifford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love love love this book.


This book is filled with soo much action and suspense that I never wanted to put it down. There are of course some grammar errors and technicalities but they don't take away from the story they are merely an obstacle.

I love the main character Ivey, thrown around in life because she was always on the move and then thrown into a world she has to save 65 million years ago? Talk about badass i want to be Ivey Choi.

Between dinosaurs and evil scientists, spies and memory erasing potions this could all be this generation. I want to see this book into a movie because it's something out of this world. i don't think there's one person who can say "I didn't like this book."

I would recommend this book to teenagers and middle schoolers.

I would also love to thank Douglas R. the author for letting me read his amazing book so that I could review it!


I would also like to add that Iveys' mother was amazing, I mean I disliked her so much at first but reading what she went through and what she does made me change the way I thought of her. She surpasses badass and is a completely new category.

[Å · Rating 2 out of 5]

***I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.***

The main story of "Horizon" has potential. Sadly the devil is in the details. With a good editor this could have been an excellent book and not a "just OK".

The story is about Ivey. She and her mother is moving from country to country. Always on the run. Ivey does not know why, but she is about to find out. Timetravel, end of the world and high-tec equipment. The story is promising for a sci-fi lover. The book never gets boring. It is well written, with cliffhangers on the right places.

However, there are some details and one or two general things that destroys the story for me.
The first thing I found rather strange is that this top secret highly founded global organization that knows everything and capable of almost anything is a part of NASA..? Or did I misunderstood this part? The Secrect Cirecle seems more to be something like a multinational intelligence operation founded and operated by some of the most powerful governments in the world - not NASA.
Further, if NASA knows about the treat to the earth, why don’t the European, Russian, Chinese, Japanese etc knows about it? That make little sense to me.

Other details that kind of ruins the story for my is that the dinosaurs are all so extremely aggressive. All of them. This is not very animal like behavior.

Further, humans and dinosaurs living side by side on earth 65 millions years ago..?! That is just simply stupid. This little detail made up my mind about this book. A good editor would have said - "listen, this little story about people living at the same time with the dinosaurs does not make any sense at all and contradict everything we know today. Further, it has nothing to do with the main storyline in the book, and the book would be much better without this detail. Remove it."

A good editor should have helped the author so the book would have change just a little bit, and I would have given it 4 or 5 stars. Because the main story and the characters are interesting and has potential.

The good thing about the book is that it is very well written. It is never boring and it is entertaining. I am sure we will hear more from this talented writer, but hopefully with the help from a good editor so he can reach his full potential.

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, I would like to thank Goodreads for holding this giveaway and to thank the author, Douglas R, for giving this book to me. I got hte paperback edition with the dinosaur cover just like the Kindle version. I am reviewing the paperback edition. This book was brilliant and amazing, reminding me so much of Jurassic Park and the Gone series by Michael Grant. I cna't believe it; this is my first book I have won in a giveaway!
Firstly, I want to comment on the cover. When I first saw the book, after taking it out of the packaging, I was very surprised at the dinosaur on the front cover, but I soon got used to it.
Good pointers about the book:
* Written in a style that is understandable for teenagers with emotions that many teenagers would experience if they were going through a situation like this.
* It grabbed me from the start
* At first, when I flicked quickly through the book, I got a bit annoyed with the spacing between each line. It varied a lot. But as I read the book, it was quite beneficial. Strange how the brain works.
* This author really knows his dinosaurs! I had to look some of them up because I didn't know what they were.
Bad pointers about the book:
* Spelling, grammar and punctuation errors- got more frequent by the end of the book.

Okay, this book was very serious. Intense and gruesome, if this became a movie, it would definitely be rated MA15+ or higher. I seriously loved this book and for me, even the gruesome battle scenes made my blood cold. Still does thinking about them. I would not want to be in a situation like that. The battles scenes were epic, especially the last major one at the end.
Cool guns, cool guys, cool aircrafts, cool dinosaurs, creepy psychotic scientist and very very scaring flying hybrid dinosaurs (dragons) (that hybrid thing confused me a bit but it scared the hell out of me when I imagined a giant T-Rex with wings). *Shudder* All in all, a bloody brilliant book.
P.S. found the reference to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. LOL
I give a very big thank you to Douglas R and Goodreads!

[Haddas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just want to start by saying that I absolutely LOVED this book; the way it was written was beautiful, easy to understand and got you sucked into the book just from the first couple of sentences.
Horizon is about a girl named Ivey, who constantly moved around the world with her mother, Aadrika. Ivey's life wish was to live her whole life in one home. At age 18, Ivey runs away from her mother and finds out that she is 1 out of the 5 remaining Zartans, whom are destined to stop the extinction of life form on earth, as it happened 65 million years ago to the dinosaurs.
To do that she joins the secret circle, the organization that is helping her and the Zartans save the world, and goes back in time to when the dinosaurs roamed the earth to fix the Matrix, which is the key to saving the world.
The story was action packed and fast paced, and the story had the most original plot I had encountered in some time.
The character development was great and Ivey truly felt like a real human being.
Something that really stood out to me about the way the story is written was that the descriptions were very minimal, not like in most books that I find myself skipping a few sentences because I am not interested in reading what the exact color of the couch is in the sunset.
I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in having a great read.

[Garcelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very happy to receive this book from the author for an honest review. After reading the book, I would have been happy with paying for it. This is the story of Ivey, a girl who has spent her life on the run with her mother, unaware of what or who they are running from. She doesn't get some answers until she manages to escape from her mother when she is 18 years old. Then she learns that she has to go back in time, 65 million years in the past, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and prevent the humans from becoming extinct. Douglas R has done an amazing job with his originality, this is not your common "I have to save the world" dystopian book. The characters were really relatable and Ivey was so believable as the common teenager with all of the bouncing back and forth and her angst and turmoil. There are some grammatical errors and things of that nature, but this is still worth reading. I would definitely recommend this book.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for review and the possible chance of winning a copy if I finished it by November 5th.
Obviously I did not complete it in time, but I still wanted to post a review. Before that I want to apologize for not finishing it on time even though I would not have been able to post my review on Amazon (I do not have an Amazon account).
My first impression was that this was going to be a book with a weak main character with other people always having to tell her what to do. I was not completely wrong. The girl had her moments of bravery and went against some people. As for the story, it probably would have been better as a movie. Not saying that it was poorly written but, for me, the violent in it was hard to completely picture and was repetitive. If it ever becomes a movie, I will buy and watch it. For now, my opinion of this novel is not extremely positive.

[Sherri Williamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story has something for everyone; it’s mystery, fantasy, suspense, and a bit of romance thrown in. Most definitely for teens and young adults, and those adults that love to read Teen/YA books. Some would classify this as an Adventure/Mystery, but I think it’s more than an adventure, it's also a story about self discovery.
We follow Ivey, the main character, as she is thrown into a world that she has to save…in the past, 65 million years ago actually. She travels to many countries, she has to escape her mother, and she finds a really harsh reality that she may not be prepared for. Will she get the answers she looks and hopes for, or will there be more questions?
I see a bright future for the author, Douglas R. And I can’t wait to see what he brings us next.

[Timothy Bateson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book for which I have to give a very mixed review. I really enjoyed the story, but I had some issues with the writing. There are times where the story flows very smoothly, and suddenly I stumble over some awkward phrase, or poorly chosen phrasing.
From early on it was obvious that English is not the author's first language, but the story kept pulling me onward. Despite the issues I had with the language, I had a great time reading the story, and was disappointed when I got to the end, and realized there was unlikely to be a follow-up story.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very excellent. I was hoping this would be a book worth reading and I was not disappointed. This book had it all. If you have ever had any dealings with the author, you will recognize him in the book. His sense of humor comes through clearly. This book has enough excitement and suspense for ten books. I couldn't stop reading it. There were a few hitches in it, but the book itself is good enough to overlook them. The story was all around entertaining.