September 30, 2011

Review: Nebador - Book 3 - The Selection - J. Z. Colby

First of all, please do not forget my Blogoversary and Followers giveaway (click on the button to the left)
Remember, it's only until tomorrow (October first)!









Hello there, I'm back!
I don't usually post more than one review a week or so, unless I have several reviews late, but this time I waited until I had finished these two books to write their reviews.
I'm talking about The Selection, book 3 on the Nebador Series, which started with The Test, continued with The Journey and reaches a major plot point on The Selection.
The Selection picks up from where The Journey ended. I hope you have read The Test and The Journey or I might just spoil it for you. (So, SPOILER ALERT for The Journey!)

After the Mati scare, I grew fond of both Mati and Kibi. However Neti started to be unbearable. While during The Journey she showed she wasn‘t really interested on being a crew member, she also showed she was going to apply herself and try to get the most out of the studies and earn the 3 gold pieces. On The Selection, she starts whining because they are lost, running out of food or just about anything. She had her reasons, but she was annoying. More than annoying... I was deeply frustrated, she was being given knowledge way beyond people on that world and yet, she chose to just, basically, tag along.

Also, on this book, we lose several characters. Some at the selection: they go their way and we don‘t follow their stories, but one before that. It‘s a very sad and story-changing point, but since I wasn‘t very attached to him, so I didn‘t really feel it.
So there are two major plot turners, one is the loss of that character, which changes some of the team, but not really everyone, and The Selection, which shows the best in all of them.

I think the best "pre-selection" part (because the selection itself only happens around half the bok) is the monastery. Even if some of them are a bit reluctant to meditate and even accept the required silence, eventually they are all in awe with the ritual, the wonders they see while there, the beautiful place and how diferent and benevolent these religious people are, compared to the regular people of their world and, specially, to the religious orders they‘ve known before.

After a while, you can‘t help it, it‘s the selection. All of my hunches were right, specially after two things that happened and made it all very obvious.

And then, finally, we get to meet Ilika‘s ship: Manessa.
Of course, as we knew, Manessa is actually no ordinary ship, it's (or she's) a spaceship.
The ship is wonderful and all very sci-fi but without losing touch of things us mortals need (rooms, bathroom, kitchen), which pleased me. Kibi and Ilika get to share a room - and there we see a few lessons for young adults, which is cool, but everyone else separates (boys to one room and girls to another) I guess because Ilika and Kibi are "grown ups" - they're both much older than the other crew members, from what I remember, since Kibi is 17 or 18 and Ilika is on his early 20's.

I loved watching them learning to be good to the world - and when they could or couldn't help, as humans. I loved watching them lean to deal with the ship - that was pretty cool - and how to deal with societies and what they could or couldn't do as crew members.

And then I felt the book was just too short. It wasn't, really, short. I just wanted to read more, I wanted to follow them and see more of them. I'm dying to hear and see them interacting with other people, with people much more educated and from other worlds, specially if you consider Ilika isn't the most educated from where he comes from and he is the most educated where they are... I hope everything gets well explored, way beyond their boundaries - and Ilika's as well. I want to see their relationships develop - or not - as well.


I'm very curious to see the rest of the series - I heard there will be over 10 books, and I believe it, there is so much to tell, so much to explore! The universe and beyond!

Go see for yourself. You can buy Nebador Book Three at Amazon (paperback or Kindle) and several other places.