Book Review: The Shanti Heist by Killian Carter from Alien Days Anthology
[image error]Cover image taken from the book’s Amazon buy page for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.
Spoiler Free Summary: The Shanti Heist by Killian Carter is the first story in the Alien Days Anthology. Eline, haunted by the death of her sister, has taken a heist that ended up as a setup. Now she has to find a way out of the situation, but just as things look darkest, help comes from the most unanticipated place.
Character: Eline is a solid character. She’s smart and capable. Her love for her sister is obvious even though we never saw the relationship develop. I mentioned an issue with this in my last book review, but in this case, we see a character mourning for a lost loved one (which makes sense) more than a character defending her relative’s cannibalistic insanity. I can’t say Eline stuck with me after the story, but I remembered the gist of the story even though I’m nearly done with the entire anthology. I’d say that the longer a character sticks with you after reading, the better the character is.
Exposition: This was solid, especially for a short story. The story moved at a brisk pace and didn’t lag down with explanation or background history.
Worldbuilding: This wasn’t so good. I’ve come to expect this from short fiction, but I didn’t really understand the setting or world I was looking through. I saw what I needed to understand what was happening, but I didn’t feel immersed. I felt like I was watching a play where the set looked obvious if I looked closely enough.
Dialogue: This was pretty neutral for me. It didn’t lag me down. It revealed character. Those were good things. It just wasn’t snappy or memorable.
[image error]Image of Mr. Carter was taken from his website for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.
Description: Much like with the worldbuilding, even I think this book could have used a bit more description. What the author did that I appreciate is give me a fast-paced story that had some emotional power. I just miss a bit of the visuals and context that make a good story a great story.
Overall: This is one of the better stories, somewhere in the top three (though I’m not done with the whole anthology yet). The ending was powerful but a bit of a bummer for me. I would say it was a great lead-off story for the anthology because most of the others (I’ve read so far) have similar pacing and (unfortunately) similarly unfulfilling conclusions. This story felt like a cliffhanger to me, and I was left (not in a good way) wanting more. That doesn’t make the story bad. I certainly enjoyed it while I read it. If this were an excerpt from a longer work, I’d probably understand and then maybe see how the rest of the story unfolds when my TBR didn’t look like a manifesto.
Thanks for reading
Matt
