Five star reviews — Clan Lord: Science Fiction Adventure Short Stories (Life Sticks) by Joel Babbitt

This is a book I volunteered to read and review based on the premise and the first page.  Something about the author’s style drew me in that quickly.

Here’s the description, via Goodreads:

Science Fiction Adventure at the Edge of a Universe at War! 

The Life Sticks science fiction adventures bring a completely alien culture, a convincingly original alien race, and an intense series of surprising plot twists to the reader through the eyes of a young adult coming of age at the edge of a Galactic War.

Don’t just join the Clan… OWN the Clan!

The story of Razz the clan-less is triumphant, exultant, and redeeming. Once you enter his world, you will never be the same again.

In this pilot episode of the Life Sticks Short Stories, a young outcast from a primitive race fights for his place in the clans of his home forest. But unbeknownst to him, the humans from a distant star have made a deal with his clan lord that will forever change his destiny.

And my review, which sums up my feelings about it rather nicely I think.  My review is rather short, but as the story itself is only 54 pages, that’s fine.:

“The society depicted in this book is fascinating, a far cry from your typical honor based warrior society in sf. The story was also very well written, the plot was enjoyable if a bit predictable, and there were little details of word choice and sentence structure that put me in mind of much older science fiction, like Princess of Mars. Honestly, my only complaint is that the some elements of the plot were predictable enough that I rolled my eyes a little bit, thinking, “c’mon, you couldn’t have come up with something a bit more original?”

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.”

And Zemanta’s related articles are being amusing again.  Somehow one for this post is “What are the best PC games on Steam?”