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In a Universe Without Stars #1
Skyeater
Crippled by a car accident, Los Angeles exercise-fanatic Cole loses his will to live. He tries to end it all with a bottle of pills, but instead wakes up healed, inhumanly strong, and able to create energy in the palm of his hand. Mystified, he experiments with his new abilities and seeks an explanation.
An answer that defies all logic comes when towering humanoid aliens descend from space. When the aliens go on a massacre, Cole employs his newfound powers to thwart the enemy. Convenient. Too convenient.
Someone is using him as a pawn in an alien war amongst gods: one with Earth as the prize and humanity's extinction as a consequence. The invaders plan to destroy the universe to create a new one. Cole is determined to win the war, escape his dark past and regain control before the fate of the world is sealed forever.
An answer that defies all logic comes when towering humanoid aliens descend from space. When the aliens go on a massacre, Cole employs his newfound powers to thwart the enemy. Convenient. Too convenient.
Someone is using him as a pawn in an alien war amongst gods: one with Earth as the prize and humanity's extinction as a consequence. The invaders plan to destroy the universe to create a new one. Cole is determined to win the war, escape his dark past and regain control before the fate of the world is sealed forever.
- GenresScience FictionFantasy
406 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 2015
About the author
J. Alex McCarthy
5 books23 followersJ Alex McCarthy is a writer of everything science, fantasy, and magical. Born and raised in Texas, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a dream of directing and screen writing. But during a down month in his aspiring career, he decided to write a novel and found a love in the format and novels in general.
Follow him on his website here:
http://jalexmccarthy.com/
Follow him on his website here:
http://jalexmccarthy.com/
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 8, 2015
https://koeur.wordpress.com/2015/06/0...
Publisher: McCarthy
Publishing Date: May 2015
ISBN: 9781511594318
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 3.1/5
Publisher Description: Crippled by a car accident, Los Angeles exercise-fanatic Cole loses his will to live. He tries to end it all with a bottle of pills, but instead wakes up healed, inhumanly strong, and able to create energy in the palm of his hand. Mystified, he experiments with his new abilities and seeks an explanation. An answer that defies all logic comes when towering humanoid aliens descend from space. When the aliens go on a massacre, Cole employs his newfound powers to thwart the enemy. Convenient. Too convenient.
Review: This was written in the third person present tense (thanks to Jana for clarifying that), which made for an interesting, albeit, detached point of view. I read the first version but was contacted by the author about my interest in a freshly edited copy as the original was rife with grammatical errors. I waded through the errors on towards a good storyline, solid character development and some crazy SciFi world building.
Cole is in a tragic accident (with alien designs) and has new found super powers that he attributes to his watch. As he recovers and finds that he can’t kill himself he begins to realize that there are bigger events in play than just his myopic take on life. The pace is quick and the author continues to develop his characters along with that intense movement. A tough trick to accomplish for any writer as the emotive is sometimes lost along with any character development.
Towards the end the scenes jump and shift schizophrenically. Logical scene progression takes a back seat to the frenetic action. Aliens blowing kisses and behaving like humans is not really what you expect when it comes to SciFi.
This author has a lot of talent that needs to be toned down and made cogent. Embracing creativeness is wonderful but can often times leave the genre shallow if there is not some realistic aspects to the interactions and subsequent story line. A publishing deal would be great as the author could make use of editors and principally, Beta readers, in order to weave a tighter tale.
Publisher: McCarthy
Publishing Date: May 2015
ISBN: 9781511594318
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 3.1/5
Publisher Description: Crippled by a car accident, Los Angeles exercise-fanatic Cole loses his will to live. He tries to end it all with a bottle of pills, but instead wakes up healed, inhumanly strong, and able to create energy in the palm of his hand. Mystified, he experiments with his new abilities and seeks an explanation. An answer that defies all logic comes when towering humanoid aliens descend from space. When the aliens go on a massacre, Cole employs his newfound powers to thwart the enemy. Convenient. Too convenient.
Review: This was written in the third person present tense (thanks to Jana for clarifying that), which made for an interesting, albeit, detached point of view. I read the first version but was contacted by the author about my interest in a freshly edited copy as the original was rife with grammatical errors. I waded through the errors on towards a good storyline, solid character development and some crazy SciFi world building.
Cole is in a tragic accident (with alien designs) and has new found super powers that he attributes to his watch. As he recovers and finds that he can’t kill himself he begins to realize that there are bigger events in play than just his myopic take on life. The pace is quick and the author continues to develop his characters along with that intense movement. A tough trick to accomplish for any writer as the emotive is sometimes lost along with any character development.
Towards the end the scenes jump and shift schizophrenically. Logical scene progression takes a back seat to the frenetic action. Aliens blowing kisses and behaving like humans is not really what you expect when it comes to SciFi.
This author has a lot of talent that needs to be toned down and made cogent. Embracing creativeness is wonderful but can often times leave the genre shallow if there is not some realistic aspects to the interactions and subsequent story line. A publishing deal would be great as the author could make use of editors and principally, Beta readers, in order to weave a tighter tale.
December 8, 2015
I received a free copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book follows Cole, who has been left disabled after an accident, and tries to take his own life by swallowing a lot of pills. Instead of dying, though, he wakes up inhumanly strong with a lot of new powers. At the same time, there is a war with aliens going on and Cole uses his new abilities to fight against them until he realizes that someone actually seems to be toying with him, using him as a pawn in the war.
I had one major problem with this book, and that was the writing. It was written in third-person present tense, which as an idea I loved. It's quite rare to read books like that, I think, but for some reason it didn't quite work for me with this book. The present tense made things feel a lot faster-paced and intense, but at the same time the third-person narrative caused a weird sort of detachment. I honestly think that I would have enjoyed this book a lot if it had been a first-person narrative instead of third-person. I would definitely leave it in present tense, though. At some parts, the characters' emotions fell a bit flat in the writing, two, which led to them not being very multi-layered, which could've greatly improved the book.
This book follows Cole, who has been left disabled after an accident, and tries to take his own life by swallowing a lot of pills. Instead of dying, though, he wakes up inhumanly strong with a lot of new powers. At the same time, there is a war with aliens going on and Cole uses his new abilities to fight against them until he realizes that someone actually seems to be toying with him, using him as a pawn in the war.
I had one major problem with this book, and that was the writing. It was written in third-person present tense, which as an idea I loved. It's quite rare to read books like that, I think, but for some reason it didn't quite work for me with this book. The present tense made things feel a lot faster-paced and intense, but at the same time the third-person narrative caused a weird sort of detachment. I honestly think that I would have enjoyed this book a lot if it had been a first-person narrative instead of third-person. I would definitely leave it in present tense, though. At some parts, the characters' emotions fell a bit flat in the writing, two, which led to them not being very multi-layered, which could've greatly improved the book.
April 6, 2017
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads. I did not enjoy the book, I was too distracted by the lack of proofreading and editing. It felt like the author wrote it in one go and never went back to re-read it. There were continuity issues and plot holes, and characters thrown in every which way. The swearing and repetition felt juvenile.
Did Not Finish
January 7, 2017DNF @ 20%
The writing REALLY bothered me in this one. It's the main reason I'm giving up on it. The story seems to be interesting - I still am very curious about it, tbh - but it feels like the book didn't go through any kind of editing or proofreading and, honestly, this is one of my pet peeves :/
The writing REALLY bothered me in this one. It's the main reason I'm giving up on it. The story seems to be interesting - I still am very curious about it, tbh - but it feels like the book didn't go through any kind of editing or proofreading and, honestly, this is one of my pet peeves :/
July 17, 2017
“Skyeater Rewake” eBook was published in 2016 and was written by J. Alex McCarthy (http://jalexmccarthy.com). This is Mr. McCarthy’s fourth novel and the first in his “A Universe Without Stars” series.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The story is set in contemporary times. The primary character is Cole, a man who feels lost and wants to kill himself.
That is forced to change when Earth is invaded by aliens that are so powerful that they quickly decimate Earth’s military. But Cole, along with a handful of others on Earth, have been given near god like capabilities by another group of aliens that hope their gift will be enough to save human kind. There are lots of battles on Earth with the losses extensive on both sides. These battles leaves Earth nearly destroyed.
So I invested nearly 10 hours in this Science Fiction Thriller. I’m not sure it was worth that. The basic plot is OK, but I think dividing the book into two parts, one the war on Earth and the second the war on the alien ship would have been better. That would have allowed for the story parts to be fleshed out more. I personally did not enjoy the surreal nature of this story. I came very close more than once of calling a Rule of 50 (https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/2015... ) on this and moving on to something else. I don't think I will be reading any of the other books in this series. The cover art is OK, but not the best tie in to the story. I give this novel a 2.8 (rounded up to a 3) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The story is set in contemporary times. The primary character is Cole, a man who feels lost and wants to kill himself.
That is forced to change when Earth is invaded by aliens that are so powerful that they quickly decimate Earth’s military. But Cole, along with a handful of others on Earth, have been given near god like capabilities by another group of aliens that hope their gift will be enough to save human kind. There are lots of battles on Earth with the losses extensive on both sides. These battles leaves Earth nearly destroyed.
So I invested nearly 10 hours in this Science Fiction Thriller. I’m not sure it was worth that. The basic plot is OK, but I think dividing the book into two parts, one the war on Earth and the second the war on the alien ship would have been better. That would have allowed for the story parts to be fleshed out more. I personally did not enjoy the surreal nature of this story. I came very close more than once of calling a Rule of 50 (https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/2015... ) on this and moving on to something else. I don't think I will be reading any of the other books in this series. The cover art is OK, but not the best tie in to the story. I give this novel a 2.8 (rounded up to a 3) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
December 18, 2016
The novel contains pieces of a superhero story – just a story. Meet Cole: fitness nut from LA who gets into a car crash after doping out on a massive overdose of pills and, to his utter surprise, doesn’t die. At first it’s rather an unwelcome revelation for our ‘hero’. Not only does cole wake up from his fatal consumption of pharmaceuticals, he’s got powers and it’s apparent something else had a hand in denying him his sought-after demise.
So, Cole’s personal desire for a normal life void of strange events and superpowers notwithstanding, the man has the burden of saving the world pushed upon him as his shoulders sag with this new responsibility. The stars are disappearing and Cole seeks an answer to the origins of his newfound abilities – until humanoid aliens descend from space to wreak havoc, hell, and death upon the planet earth.
It turns out that the aliens are participants in a ploy to end all of humanity as the space invaders face off against gods with earth as the prize and the extinction of the human race a consequence should Cole fail in his mission.
Now then…
Overall this was difficult to read. Thre isn’t much in the way of supporting characters adding any layers to the story to give it that something extra to reward the reader for struggling through a halting narrative containing redundant swear words, plot holes, continuity issues, or to make up for the evident lack of proofreading or editing. The characters themselves are bland and uninteresting, making it impossible to feel sympathy towards them or to find one that was likeable. Also, there are places where the writing feels rushed as if the author wrote it in a single sitting and didn’t consider re-reading his work.
(Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)
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So, Cole’s personal desire for a normal life void of strange events and superpowers notwithstanding, the man has the burden of saving the world pushed upon him as his shoulders sag with this new responsibility. The stars are disappearing and Cole seeks an answer to the origins of his newfound abilities – until humanoid aliens descend from space to wreak havoc, hell, and death upon the planet earth.
It turns out that the aliens are participants in a ploy to end all of humanity as the space invaders face off against gods with earth as the prize and the extinction of the human race a consequence should Cole fail in his mission.
Now then…
Overall this was difficult to read. Thre isn’t much in the way of supporting characters adding any layers to the story to give it that something extra to reward the reader for struggling through a halting narrative containing redundant swear words, plot holes, continuity issues, or to make up for the evident lack of proofreading or editing. The characters themselves are bland and uninteresting, making it impossible to feel sympathy towards them or to find one that was likeable. Also, there are places where the writing feels rushed as if the author wrote it in a single sitting and didn’t consider re-reading his work.
(Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)
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May 3, 2015
Book name is freaking awesome!
One of the best books i have ever read.. Everything went smoothly and consistently creating curiosity..
This book was wonderful, absolutely fantastic! I adored it!
I went into this book thinking "oh, this seems like it will be a nice story." And, wow, this book exceed my expectations and blow me away. This smartly written, thought-provoking novel is a must read for any fan of fiction.
5/5
Thanks to Netgalley for a copy!
One of the best books i have ever read.. Everything went smoothly and consistently creating curiosity..
This book was wonderful, absolutely fantastic! I adored it!
I went into this book thinking "oh, this seems like it will be a nice story." And, wow, this book exceed my expectations and blow me away. This smartly written, thought-provoking novel is a must read for any fan of fiction.
5/5
Thanks to Netgalley for a copy!
September 13, 2015
I received this book as a first read. The story is interesting but the plot gets bogged down by the descriptions which slows the pace of the story down. The romantic storylines were unnecessary. Several of the characters were unlikeable so you find it hard to root for them and part of you wants the aliens to wipe humanity out. The aliens and their interactions with humans were interesting. A decent read that would've been improved with some editing.
December 16, 2015
I won this book through the Goodread giveaways.
I love alien movies, plot where a normal humain being has to become more to save the planet and this book gives it to you.
it was really fast paced, I got lost several time as the naration is not continuous but breaked down on several pieces, more like a movie than a proper book.
the plot is very good, it is well explained and you can follow the evolution of the protagonists.
I recommend it if this kind of story appeals to you.
I love alien movies, plot where a normal humain being has to become more to save the planet and this book gives it to you.
it was really fast paced, I got lost several time as the naration is not continuous but breaked down on several pieces, more like a movie than a proper book.
the plot is very good, it is well explained and you can follow the evolution of the protagonists.
I recommend it if this kind of story appeals to you.
August 17, 2015
I reviewed this book for NetGalley.
This novel is a fast-paced and different take on the themes of meta-humans and alien invasion. Very enjoyable read with a philosophical twist - what do you save - humanity or the universe?
A really great all nighter or beach read. It will also make you think, which is a good thing. Intellectual stimulation is always positive.
Good job, Mr. McCarthy!
This novel is a fast-paced and different take on the themes of meta-humans and alien invasion. Very enjoyable read with a philosophical twist - what do you save - humanity or the universe?
A really great all nighter or beach read. It will also make you think, which is a good thing. Intellectual stimulation is always positive.
Good job, Mr. McCarthy!
June 4, 2015
Thanks to Goodreads for a copy of Skyeater. This book will be welcomed by anyone who cannot sit still. The action is never-ending and I really enjoyed the twists that developed in the plot. Bloody scenes weren't my favorite, but, that's my preference.
August 23, 2015
Loved the story line and all the char. Please write some more books.
January 2, 2018
I was able to get my hands on this book a while ago via NetGalley. This was a hard read on the basis of the prose. It was awkward in places and I felt that the pacing was just off. The world building was decent but in places, it was more hammed in than anything else.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews