Book Review: The Last Sentinel by S.T. Lane

Title: The Last Sentinel

Author: S.T. Lane

Release date: September 27, 2022

I don’t typically start out my reviews how this one is, but I’m going to in the hopes this helps S.T. Lane. I’m not sure when we started following each other on Twitter, but it’s been a little bit and I was excited to see her debut novella – ‘The Last Sentinel’ – would be arriving. I somehow missed her release date post, but saw a tweet from her yesterday where she said she’d only sold one copy, and while she should be sad, she was still happy that someone would be reading a good story. I went to take a look on Goodreads at the synopsis and couldn’t find it, so I went to Amazon. I snagged a copy, knowing I could read this in a single sitting easily and get a review up for it, in the hopes of getting some more eyes on it!

The cover is intriguing when coupled with the synopsis, and while I’m not sure if this is part of a longer tale to be revealed going forward, this would make for an excellent jumping off spot for a sequel.

What I liked: The story follows Stanley, a coward who turned to alcohol when aliens invaded earth. Now, with his son and wife gone, he needs to muster the courage to try and find them, even if it means he dies while doing so.

The story is fast-paced with a lot packed into it, in a good way. We get a really solid grounding and understanding of Stanley and why he is how he is and how he’s struggling with alcohol withdrawal in the face of the invasion.

I personally am always a fan of ‘when they arrive’ stories and love seeing how each author makes them their own. Lane does a great job of giving us unique extra-terrestrials and the action scenes that take place near the end were a lot of fun to fly through.

As I mentioned, the ending makes it so that this could be a singular stand alone story or leaves the door open to continue you and let us see more of what happens and where they came from.

What I didn’t like: I did find it odd that humanity crumbled and the world’s leaders had no way of figuring out how to stop them, but Stanley knows and goes straight to where it all takes place. Of course, in Sci-Fi/Horror, you always need to suspend your belief in the hard and fast concrete world and let the story play out, but it did still strike me as odd.

Why you should buy this: Currently, it looks like this is ebook only, so hopefully for the physical fans a paperback is on the way soon. For those who read digitally, this book hums along and really reminded me a lot of the TV show ‘Falling Skies’ that aired from 2011-2015.

A quick, snappy, alien-infused read, which I really had fun with!

4/5