Though the premise sounded promising, I can't remember a lot of books that I struggled more with to finish it. Still, I can see it had potential.
Theodore Crane gets an important message. He's Earth's Messiah and should gather four friends to help save the galaxy which is under threat from two fighting demi-god brothers. His biggest problem is, he doesn't have four friends.
At first, I was immediately curious. The start, I think, was really good. Theodore is in some kind of Galactic prison for some kind of crimes and he's forced to describe the events that led up to his arrest. I wanted to know what had happened and why. This is followed by a rather long part on Earth were he's trying to gather his group. (They'll really be his, as he's supposed to be their obvious leader).
This was also the point were I started eye-rolling. It was to me as if the author was trying to also convey some of his own morale standards in this book, something of which I'm never quite fond. The most striking example is when Theodore and a friend are evaluating possible recruits and they are not sure someone is worthy because they suspect his mother of adultery. The idea that this person would be a bad person just because his mother is -perhaps- doing these things is ridiculous and absurd.
They spend a lot of time skateboarding, friend-gathering and gaming before they finally set off on their adventure. It then is more like Ender's Game, although they receive less training. It had a hard time holding my interest.Things are quite weird with Sephera, a planet inhabited by dead people (and possibly aliens as well) that are now kind of alive and are built up from thousands/millions of tiny, tiny robots.
Like I said, I had to struggle to finish this book, and I didn't really wanted to continue with the series, but I already had an ARC for next book as well, and I felt I had to read it. It's not that The Acolytes of Crane is a bad book, it just wasn't really what I expected and therefore I was disappointed. The beginning was so good. I hope it picks up in the next book.
The Acolytes of Crane is the first book in the Theodore Crane-series. The second book is called The Ghost of Sephera.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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