Review: Children of the Fifth Sun

Children of the Fifth Sun by Gareth Worthington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a free copy of this book through BookSirens in exchange for an honest, voluntary review. Also, I see some other references to novellas and/or multiple parts of the story. To clarify the edition, I read a review edition of the book that was 415 pages (according to BookSirens).

I am really conflicted with how to rate and describe this book. It is like a condensed version of the show Ancient Aliens with a mix of concepts from the movies 2012 and The Shape of Water (among other concepts/theories). When we are first introduced to K'in and what he is, my first thoughts went to the creature in The Shape of Water.

The execution was a little disappointing. I really love the topics the book delves into, but it was not the page turner I was hoping for. It reminds me a bit of a writing assignment I had to do in high school. We were given a list of phrases and nouns and had to use as many as we could in a story. It was like all of the ancient alien theories were on a list and had to be used in someway in the story. The redeeming quality of this book is that it is action packed; in fact, you are into the action in the first chapter or two. I found that the book picked up further down the line as well.

Because of the direction the book goes, this book could have ended around chapter 28 or 29 and everything after that could have been a whole separate book. The segue from chapter 29 to 30 (one year later) seemed a little awkward to me especially since the connections to the all of the theories presented are never fully explained or connected. It seemed like one theory would be talked about for a couple of pages then suddenly a new theory is being talked about for a couple pages with a somewhat connection to the first theory then another theory is dropped that may or may not have anything to do with the first two. The story essentially takes you from theories like Earth Crust Displacement to DNA splicing and back again. While writing this review, I really struggled with trying to explain what I mean in words. Maybe I watch Ancient Aliens too much.

So, back to the rating. I am really conflicted. I found parts of the book to slow down a bit, but I did enjoy the book overall. I almost never give half stars, but this time I would give this book 3.5 stars rounded up to a 4 as I am definitely interested in reading the sequel, Children of the Fifth Sun: Echelon.

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