Finders Keepers

Title: Finders Keepers
Author: Russ Colchamiro

Ratings

Score: 2/10

Review

For me, unfortunately, Finders Keepers was not an easy book to read. If I hadn't been given it as a review copy, I probably wouldn't have read past the first couple of chapters. Which would have been a shame, because it got a bit better towards the end - although I felt that the actual conclusion was a bit disappointing.

But I'll discuss the good things first. I really liked a lot of the characters in the book. Some of them not at first, and two of them not at all - Donald and Danielle. But I really liked Jason, one of the main characters, and Lilly, one of the lesser characters. I felt that both of them were really well written and characterized, and I simply enjoyed reading their scenes - especially the ones where they were together. I spent the majority of the book (after they met) hoping they would end up living happily ever after together...

The other thing I really enjoyed reading about was the Eternitians. I don't mean the individual characters, although Emma and Brigsby were both great characters (I didn't like Earth-Emma though), but the ideas about how the universe was created, the various protocols and culture they had was quite interesting. One of the little inclusions that I liked was that Colchamiro noted that "Edinburgh" was not pronounced "Edinborough" (It's pronounced Edin-Bruh, for those who don't know). It's where I study, so it's nice to see it included. But I felt that when the Author pointed out pronounciations in the narrative it was awkward, out of place for the most part. It worked well when he did it through Dialogue, as in the example above.

And that was the main problem for me - the narrative. It just wasn't for me. I don't tend to like narrative with slang and swearing in it. Sometimes it works, but not in this book. And when in the first paragraph "The Minder of the Universe opened a can of whoopass" it gave me a bad first impression that never really went away - although as I said at the beginning it got better further on. It also didn't help that the prologue was Donald and Danielle based - the two characters that I really didn't enjoy reading. I didn't find it getting an easier to read till about page 80.

[MAJOR SPOILER]

And then there's the end. Essentially, there was a little scene out set miles away from the main characters, which ended kind of suddenly, and a little confusingly. And then everyone seemed to forget their objectives and go home - except main character Theo, who just didn't manage his. It was then that I realised that Jason didn't have any real objectives. Except to enjoy himself maybe. But no-one really accomplished anything.

[END SPOILER]

So Overall, despite some quite good characters, There was too much swearing, both in-dialogue and in-narrative, and slang in-narrative for me to really enjoy it. There was humour, but it was mainly crude rather than sharp humour - yet the sex scenes were generally quite bad/slangy. There were some rather nice ideas, but I found it difficult to read, and it ended unsatisfyingly. Although I'm sure there are some people out there who probably would like it more than I did, I'm afraid I'm not going to recommend this book.


More Information

Main Protagonist(s): 2 Male
Main Antagonist(s): 1 Female, 1 Transvestite
Main Relationships: Heterosexual
Genre: Science Fiction, Humour
Brief Synopsis:

As the Milky Way Galaxy is being created in Eternity's laboratories, a jar of CBM (cosmic building material) goes missing on Earth (thanks to the on-the-clock "getting' it on" of two employees). Hapless New Zealander Theo Barnes discovers the jar but has no idea what it contains; when the sea creatures start talking, however, even he realizes that it holds great significance. Eager to learn more, he goes on a backpacking trip through Europe, where he meets Jason Medley, an aimless American on a quest of self-discovery. The two meander across the continent, while all around them people search desperately for the CBM, intent on salvaging the scheduled unveiling of the Milky Way. 

-Amazon

ISBN:978-0-9794801-4-0

Amazon Link: UK | US
Pages: 300
Published: 2010
Publisher: 3 Finger Prints