Just finished reading “A Factory of Dust” this weekend. This debut novel from Sam Arco is a sci-fi detective novel that easily blurs the lines between a good old fashioned Dick Tracey type novel and a futuristic sci-fi dystopian novel. I liked that the story never crossed into full dystopia, as that would have been way too depressing.

The book reads quick and easy with subtle warnings given about our current societal obsession with perfection and technology. The author was able to skillfully weave in current technology issues, unnatural/impossible beauty standards and all of the problems with social media we face today into the augmentation/cyborg state of the characters.

The story itself is extremely dialogue heavy which at times can get a little bogged down and I found myself unable to put the book down between chapters, or else I’d lose the story and have to read back a few pages to reintegrate back into the book. There are also a lot of typos and formatting errors in the kindle edition.

The author does a good job of storytelling from different characters without getting too far away from the main character, Miles Valentine. I would have liked a lot more background on Miles and the other characters, more back story stuff to help flesh them out and round out the story a bit more.

For a first time author, A Factory of Dust is a monumental achievement. Hopefully Sam Arco keeps writing.

2019 has not been my favorite book year so far.  I’ve been snagging new books through the Amazon first reads program and flipping through a lot of different genres and authors.  Some, like The Storyteller’s Secret have been absolutely amazing, others like Rock Needs River have been disappointing.  Caroline: Little House, Revisited goes into the disappointing pile.  The premise of the story is absolutely irresistible for Little House lovers like me.  Caroline takes on the Little House epic through the eyes of Laura’s mother, Caroline Ingalls.

Unfortunately, Caroline is one book I’m giving up on.  Miller’s writing is downright boring.  She drowns the story in a flood of words and endless descriptions that add nothing to the story but definitely take away from it.  There were too many times I had to go back and re-read a paragraph just to figure out what started the endless paragraph in the first place.   Miller spends a lot of time on the mundane tasks and unnecessary detail.  There were whole paragraphs dedicated to pregnancy nausea, sore breasts after a day jiggling during the wagon ride, Laura and Mary needing to use the “necessary” before bed, someone always needing a chamber pot.  At the 30% mark, I decided to give up reading Caroline because the book was only about 4 days into their trip and I just couldn’t imagine following this boring tale through another day.

Miller also includes a lot of historical details that aren’t well known and create odd juxtapositions like a “corduroy bridge” and then fails to provide any context clues to help readers figure out what she’s talking about.  Apparently, corduroy bridges are a thing, but unless you’re well versed in early 19th century road history, you’re going to struggle with how a fabric type relates to a bridge.   

Boring superfluous writing aside, the worst sin in my opinion is how Miller has taken our beloved Ma, as written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and depicted her as a boring, insecure, whiny, hyper-Puritan type who dwells on the negative.   In one story, Charles (or Pa as we know him) is teasing and flirting with Ma, to which she responds by hiding her braid so Charles can’t get worked up.  This was just so absolutely bizarre.  Ma, as written by Miller, comes across an angsty emo and it ruins the entire dynamic Laura created of Pa as the wild frontiersman and Ma as his ever ready and capable partner.

Miller has taken the fun and adventure out of the Little House stories.  0 stars.

Until next time, happy reading!

-Cheers,

R