The Gaia Wars
by Kenneth G. Bennett was unfortunately the most painful book I’ve read for review yet. Some others I never completed, but I kept hoping that something interesting would come from this one.
The main character, Warren, is a 13-year-old nature-loving orphan living with his uncle. At the beginning of the book, he sabotages the jet-ski and dock of a local developer in a ill-considered motion of ‘revenge.’ While he has a momentary feeling of regret and guilt at the moment of the damage, his actions are justified by the author and passed off as a simple prank, instead of the dangerous sabotage they would be in real life. Soon, Warren is fighting an ecological battle with not only the local people who don’t seem to realize what is happening to their valley, but also the developer who has been possessed by an alien and whose shape-shifting minions are taking over the town. The theme of wilderness preservation is not well-presented, with stereotypes throughout the book, from the arrogant son of the developer who is destroying local wetlands to the alien bad guy who wants to destroy our planet.
This is the first book in a proposed series, so it does not wrap up the story; there may be time for Mr. Bennett to improve his characters and rescue his writing style from unbelievable coincidences and character actions. However, I do not think I will be picking up any further books in this series.
I rate this book for 15 and older on the Aardvark scale for violence and poor environmental logic.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.
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