Book Review: Crescent by Phil Rossi

Title: Crescent
Author: Phil Rossi
Genre: Sci-Fi / Horror
Publisher: Dragon Moon Press
Publishing Date: June, 2009
Paperback: 320 pages
Standalone

Summary

Crescent is an eerie space station floating beyond the frontier of conquered safe space. This is where Gerald Evans, a talented salvage pilot arrives to find himself tangled in the webs of horror, love, corruption and mystery.

Don't Judge A Book By It But...

I'm not really impressed by the cover art. I think it is disappointing at the least. In my mind, it doesn't make justice to the quality of the writing and what the book promises.

Review

"The angel of death wore no black robes. Instead, he was a blaze of violet and agony."

Oh! I love it!

I had been looking for a good sci-fi horror book for a while. Even though I usually read fantasy, every now and then it's nice to switch genre to see what else is out there. But I usually do a research about what I read and I always have an idea about the author and the book when I pick up a book. Well... It wasn't so for Crescent. I hadn't heard about the book before and when I saw that Dragon Moon Press were graciously giving away an electronic copy of the book, I decided to read a couple of pages. It immediately got at the top of my to-read pile. Then I couldn't put it down and I read it all in a few days.

I thoroughly enjoyed Crescent. In his book, Rossi tells a growingly dark story. He conveys the darkness of the setting very well and the gloomy space station Crescent comes alive in your mind as you turn the pages. The gritty characters and Rossi's fluent and rigorous writing style meet with enough mystery, sci-fi and horror to give the reader a great story. Add this some corruption and love: you have a most captivating book.

I loved the first half of the story and I could feel my expectations building up with ever page turn. However, I was a little disappointed as the culmination of the story didn't satisfy me completely. I must admit that this is a bit of my own doing as I let my expectations and imagination run loose while I was reading Crescent. For lack of a better word, I thought there were cliché moments in the story and some corners cut short, which scored a few negative points in my mind. Fortunately this didn't apply to the ending because I was pleasantly surprised by it.

What I expressed in the previous paragraph didn't spoil the story for me. All in all, I greatly enjoyed Crescent. I can recommend it wholeheartedly for sci-fi/horror lovers.

Rating: 8/10

Quote

"How many days, she couldn't count. Time was becoming a mere footnote on the rapidly shuffling pages of her existence."