224 pages
Published 2023
Read May 22
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Something for me to unlearn: My snobbish dismissal of books that aren’t formatted “properly.”
That tendency is especially evident with this self-published book from the author of the lovely ground-level space opera Water into Wine. When I first opened my copy, I was immediately put off by how much it looked like a Word document: 12 point Times New Roman, double spaced; the first page of the text opened on an even number. I almost consigned it to my small pile of indie and self-pub books that I won’t read because I don’t want to give anything indie a bad review. (Giving a bad review to an indie title feels mean to me. I’d rather DNF and resist stepping on anyone just trying to make it out here.)
I’m glad I persevered through my own internalized gatekeeping, because this tale of a human scientist who crashes onto a planet and joins a clan of therian folk is charming and worth a read (as long as you’re open to a cross-species sci-fi romance with anthropomorphic wolf warriors in space). Chng’s prose is solid, better than many traditionally published sci-fi authors I won’t name — especially impressive, considering the fact that the manuscript saw no professional editing, the secret ingredient of mainstream publications.
In case my 2.5 star rating seems harsh, keep in mind that my ratings on this blog have always treated 2.5 as the midpoint, the “averagely good and worth checking out” threshold. It isn’t the same as a 2.5 you’d see in a place like Goodreads.
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