Review: Unexpected Alliances
<p><cite>Unexpected Alliances</cite> (M.R. LaScola; Two Harbors Press) is, alas, a horrible example of why the absence of editorial gatekeepers in indie publishing can be a bad thing.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s a clue: if you see nothing wrong with a near-future first-contact scene in which the commander of an armada of 30,000 starships many light years from Earth introduces herself as Nancy Hartley from the planet Ultron, you shouldn&#8217;t be writing SF.</p>
<p>The relatively short portion of the book I managed to read before I gave up also featured talking dragons and 7-foot-tall nonhuman aliens who casually interbreed with humans. The prose reads like something a bright 9-year-old might write.  It&#8217;s a sort of pile of glittery SF and fantasy fripperies quoted with absolutely no regard to whether they make any sense, or even any sense that they <em>ought</em> to make sense.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a brave new world.  Anyone can publish.  Sometimes they shouldn&#8217;t.</p>
