David Hughes reviewed Red River Seven by A. J. Ryan
Excellent premise, lousy execution
2 stars
So you wake up and you're on a boat. A curious mist shrouds the landscape and in it there are screaming noises. There's also the small matter that you, and the six other folk on the boat, have no memory of who you are. And you're all armed. It takes some talent to ruin this intriguing premise, but ruin it A.J. Ryan does - the literary equivalent of missing the net from six yards out or fumbling the ball just before the endzone. How does he do it? 1) Flat and purely functional writing 2) Lack of depth to the interchangeable characters, most of whom exist to impart specialist knowledge relevant to a situation - i.e., infodumps 3) Clichéd and pointless characters - the villain of the piece and especially Golding 4) Elements of the plot - let's execute this dumb plan that doesn't make any sense 5) There's an …
So you wake up and you're on a boat. A curious mist shrouds the landscape and in it there are screaming noises. There's also the small matter that you, and the six other folk on the boat, have no memory of who you are. And you're all armed. It takes some talent to ruin this intriguing premise, but ruin it A.J. Ryan does - the literary equivalent of missing the net from six yards out or fumbling the ball just before the endzone. How does he do it? 1) Flat and purely functional writing 2) Lack of depth to the interchangeable characters, most of whom exist to impart specialist knowledge relevant to a situation - i.e., infodumps 3) Clichéd and pointless characters - the villain of the piece and especially Golding 4) Elements of the plot - let's execute this dumb plan that doesn't make any sense 5) There's an old Scottish TV ad for stock cubes that ends with the line "Pea and ham? From a chicken?", which makes more sense than than Ryan's extremely ropey science. Also, that's not how antibodies work.
In addition, some elements remind me very much of M.R. (Hey! What's with all the initials?) Carey's 'The Girl With All the Gifts' but without the sympathetic characters or quality of writing. Might make an ok film, but the kind of book that deters you from reading more by the author.
