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Heaven and Earth by Arturo Riojas

Bede

New Member
Heaven and Earth by Arturo Riojas

Mister Riojas has a message to deliver. He wants to tell us that we are all being poisoned by cadmium, due to, amongst other things the widespread use of it in fertilisers.
This would have been all well and good, if he had simply delivered a paper on the subject, using his obviously extensive research. He chose not to go down that avenue.

He also wants to tell us a science fiction story, a complex yarn encompassing thousand of years in which ancient Mayas flew jet aircraft and visiting aliens constructed the pyramids. This would also have been alright if he had chosen to do that.

Unfortunately for the reader mister Riojas chose not to do either of the above and as a result he ends up doing neither, because what he has done is mercilessly and clumsily mashed the two projects together in what becomes a confusing jumble of two very different books.

We begin with a fiction, containing aliens with unpronounceable names and then a sudden switch to the beginnings of a scientific article. Once again before we can settle into a specific reading mode we switch back to a novel in which all the characters are new and bare no apparent relation to the those in the first chapter first.

This would not have been so bad if they had tied in - in say chapter four, but by then mister Riojas has started two more novels, or the beginning of them and interspersed them with yet more science that becomes repetitive and begins to lack for entertainment.
How many times do we need telling that we are all being poisoned and are going to die of cancer as a result?

Mister Riojas also starts one chapter in the present tense and then suddenly switches to the past. One or the other would be fine and show a certain writing style, but to switch mid chapter is simply just weak writing. He also switches scenes mid chapter instead of simply staring another, excused by a row of squiggly lines!

So, what we have here is two or three books mercilessly thrown into one big melting pot and the resultant message or messages are lost due to confusion. Were he to edit the two/three books and make them more accurately written, then the reader would have some chance of making sense of it all and actually getting some enjoyment from his efforts.

1 out of 4 stars (Poor)
 
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