The Star Crossed Saga: Protostar

The galactic civilisation of the Torrian Alliance is on the brink of Civil War - crusading to destroy the "Star-children" to suppress an intergalactic evil. King Gregorio Derry send's his only son on a mission to restore the honor of his family, to hunt down one of these children. Life is never straight forward however and it isn't long before his "simple" mission becomes a lot more complicated.

I am not a fan of romance novels and ordinarily this doesn't cause much of a problem, however Protostar is quite heavy in the romance stakes. I am aware that this is what the author intended - creating a blend of science fiction and romance and I am sure that there will be plenty of readers who like this combination but for me the romance side of things far outweighed any science fiction elements.

The story itself - or at least the ideas - are ok with an interesting premise, I enjoyed the way the author managed to play on the fact that William is supposed to kill this "star-child" without the reader knowing through most of the novel if these children are really evil or if William himself is part of a violent regime. The style of writing however is overly formal and as a result the pace tends to suffer at times.

This formal prose extends to a superlative use of descriptive elements - especially at the beginning of the book - preventing the novel from gathering any real momentum and as a result the prose doesn't flow as it would otherwise. While part of this will be the fact that it is a romance novel, and part aimed at the young adult market - this really jared with me at the start and as a result it took much longer to create any real bond with the characters or care about the situations.

The characters themselves are larger than life and a little over the top but at the same time appear two dimensional at times, partly due to the amount of time and space being used to fill in incidental details - along with the punctilious prose. Does it really matter what pattern and colour the chair a character is sitting in is if we are never going to see that chair again, or at least the chair not play a significant role in the story? at the end of the day it is just a chair. One the same note there is an abundant use of superlatives and these get in the way, with the result that everyone comes across as a bit too nice - even the bad guys.

As a romance novel it's actually very good though - and it is a romance novel with a science fiction backdrop, rather than a science fiction story with romance elements. Despite my aversion to that genre I did find myself getting hooked in to the story and for that the author should be applauded.

Any fan's of the romance genre should enjoy The StarCrossed Saga: Protostar, it is a very effective story and does keep you on your toes as far as the love stakes go, just don't be under any illusions that it's a scifi novel.