The Man From Empire

by Dan Melson

An arcology in the Empire has been destroyed, estimated casualties 18 million. Osh Scimtar, an Imperial Secundus, has the opportunity to follow the saboteur's escape route if he goes immediately. He arrives at a technological but primitive world, just beginning the climb the Empire has already made, populated by humans whose ancestors must have been from the Empire. He meets a young woman who helps him learn what he needs to know to complete his mission on this unknown world with no knowledge of or contact with the Empire. A world known to its inhabitants as Earth

Genres: Science Fiction

228 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2013

About the author

Many varied and eclectic interests from science to history to finance to economics.

I live with The World's Only Perfect Woman, two daughters I am preparing for world domination, and a variable number of dachshunds.

Reviews

[Vidhya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very different book- different not because of the plot or concept but more so because of the way it was written and I would leave the interpretation of whether it is to be liked or criticised to the reader.
I wanted to see more of Grace and ScOsh. It was a very complicated yet interesting relationship that I would have invested in - if not for the too much of info dump that kept restricting me. I spent more time understanding where ScOsh was from than getting into the story.
What I loved was the way ScOsh’s ‘world’ was described. It felt more like what we want in our society but probably would take forever to achieve. I liked the point on rape - The more I read about ScOsh’s ‘world’, the more I wanted our world to be like that.
This is a nice read provided you are looking for something different and thought provoking.

[E.M. Swift-Hook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Wars Meets Atlas Shrugged

The Man from Empire is a science fantasy first-contact novel, introducing a series. Grace was regretting having to walk through a bad neighbourhood when a figure appears from nowhere and kills her would-be attackers. The same figure turns up in her apartment a little later and changes her life forever. She learns that there is a galactic empire out there of humans who have become Operant and developed stunning psychic powers. Her saviour, Osh Scimtar (ScOsh to his friends) first alters her mind and body to make her younger, healthier and cleverer and then tells her about his home and the war that it is engaged in. Grace’s life is changed forever and a whole new and exciting destiny opens up to her.

What I Really Enjoyed:
The author writes in an flowing chatty style which makes the whole book easy to access. This is a rare talent indeed and something I much admired. The book is written from the perspective of Grace who is an attractive character and reassuringly normal which makes it very easy, as a reader, to identify with her and share her shock and gradual adjustment to the events that rip her life apart.
I loved the feeling that there was a very solid setting behind this story. The setting the author has come up with is deep and incredibly detailed. Just about every area of life has been thought of and the abilities the Guardians and their enemies have as Operants are very thoroughly explained and explored - or where they can’t be that too is explained.
The action scenes are very engaging and well written.

What I Struggled With:
The amount of detail about the setting the author presented. I jest not, about 45% of the book is pure information about that setting. So much so that my eyes glazed over and I was wanting to skip pages...and pages...and pages. It took my tolerance level for such things beyond the limit and into the level of resentment - I resented that the author was giving me this dull as ditchwater detail when I really wanted to get back to the exciting story about Grace and ScOsh.

Overall Thoughts:
This is a really superb science fantasy story by a brilliantly fluent writer, the kind that I love to read, wrapped in am oppressively muffling, over-thick, quilt of incredibly intense and detailed world building. If you enjoy reading world building interspersed with occasional action scenes, you will love this book.

[Noor Al-Shanti · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Man From Empire is a sci fi tale about a man from another world who goes to Earth in pursuit of terrorists who destroyed a huge city/building complex in his world. Most of the story is told from the POV of the human he meets, and takes along on his adventures. And the story had a lot of potential, the world was clearly planned out in detail by the author, it's just that the big moments of the story didn't really ring through because the majority of the book was spent on info-dumps about this Empire that actually has little to do with the story.

It would be like a Doctor Who series where there was only one real story/plot for the entire series and the majority of the run-time was instead spent with the Doctor telling his companion all the minute details about his world's politics and coming up with analogies to try to explain powers that humans can't possible fathom anyway. These monologues stretched on and on and on, and honestly, they are the reason this got a 2-star from me and not a 3. And it's a shame, because it seemed like if the world had been revealed in a non-lectury way it may have been very interesting.

The characters also weren't very easy to care about. The alien character was too aloof and way too powerful for there to be any stakes when he got into tough situations, no matter how much he insisted that he was only low-powered among his people, and the human character... seriously stretched my immersion. I spent the first few paragraphs, as the character walked through and looked down upon, the neighborhood next to their workplace, convinced that it was a slightly prejudiced middle aged man then suddenly was shocked by the reveal that it was a woman and then eventually was told that it was a Mexican-American woman! There were all kinds of little details that were well-thought out that were supposed to make this character clearly a Mexican woman, but I still didn't buy it. And maybe it's me, here, because it's not like I know much about being a Mexican woman, but... it just seemed forced or not genuine somehow.

Also, the way the character thought about her own attractiveness, age, curves, etc, constantly even in the middle of battles, really grated on my nerves. At times I felt like she only really existed so she could be observed being good-looking and ask the other character very broad questions so he could continue his monologues, which is a weird position to put your main character in! A waste of a potentially interesting main character.

This brings up my final point which was another big source of annoyance for me. In between the lectures about the Empire and the "healing" enhancements that the main character got there was a very obvious sense that humans in this Empire had somehow reached "perfect" lives through tampering with their genes and that somehow genes could determine perfection or lack thereof. To be fair, the author did mention that the Empire had had some sort of negative experience with a Eugenics-type "breeding" and that it wasn't necessarily a good thing, but this was overshadowed by pages and pages of lecture about how much superior to Earth the Empire was!

Overall, it had potential and was certainly similar to a lot of the "golden age" sci fi books that many people do love, with a super-clever male protagonist who goes on and on about some scientific thing or another. I don't love those stories(the one book of Asimov's Foundation series I did manage to read bored me to tears), but I know others do, so you might like this one. And at least this one attempted to include a main female character in it, unlike many of those old sci fi classics. So if you like those kinds of stories, definitely check it out.

[Larry J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost Good

Well, there is an interesting story in there if you can get past all propaganda about how great an autocratic society is. The story mentions the dangers of having power concentrated in too few individuals but then has too few individuals in charge of the Empire. Of course, these are apparently near immortal responsible super beings guiding a society of trillions of responsible adults. They’re necessary to protect everyone from the bad near immortal irresponsible super beings.

The concepts are simplistic and absent gray areas with nuance. However, if you can get past the authors idea of his dream government & find the story, it has the potential to be a relatively good action story.

The characters could be more fully developed by showing us the idiosyncrasies and nuance that make people interesting. Perhaps that could replace whole sections of preaching about the author’s perceived Nirvana. Don’t get me wrong, the system of government is fine for the basing of this story but allow the reader to draw their own conclusions about how or why it works. Just say it works. It’s a story if we like it we’ll find our own reasons.

So, if you enjoy preaching about the wonders of autocratic systems or, you can skim through that fully 1/3 of the book & get to the story, you might like the book.

As for me, it’s a good lesson for me to avoid preaching at others and to avoid this series.

Hopefully the author will find a good commercial (think publishing house style) editor to help him forgo the preaching and fill out the story. I’d like to try something different from this author. He definitely has potential.

[D. Peach · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts out fabulously with the snarky and sarcastic character of Grace Juarez. Grace is an ordinary woman with an ordinary life until she encounters Scosh, a Guardian from an alien empire who is attempting to hunt down and destroy terrorists and monsters that have escaped to Earth.

After introducing Grace in chapter one, the story quickly transitions to exposition and lecture as Scosh educates Grace on the political/social/judicial aspects of his home world, a place the reader never gets to experience.

For a while, Scosh usurps much of the text, leaving Grace with a sentence or two between large chunks of detailed worldbuilding. Grace has a limited role in the book despite being the pov character, and her arc is primarily related to her increase in knowledge and skills as opposed to personal change. Scosh is a cerebral character, almost robotic, with a highly developed intelligence. He’s also emotionally flat and doesn’t change or grow as a person, suggesting that this is primarily a plot-driven novel.

The book progresses at a slow pace, reinforced by extraordinarily long paragraphs that provide complex information that seemed irrelevant to the plot. The plot is straightforward, the action moving from one battle with terrorists and monsters to the next. The action is well written, and the frequency of battles with the terrorists, demons, and monsters increases as the book progresses. The worldbuilding and its political commentary is clearly well developed, but appears to be the main focus of the book.

[J.S. Frankel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where do I start?

I'd like to say that this book was well written. We have a Guardian--with a capital 'G'--Osh “ScOsh” Scimtar (Osh Kosh, begosh, there, I said it, it's over) who is tracking a killer through space and he ends up on Earth where he meets Grace Juarez, an office worker. They end up searching for justice while going through some harrowing adventures along the way.

At first, the novel holds up. Some action sequences are well done, the dialogue is okay...and then it all falls down. The author obviously is more into telling than showing, and we end up with ScOsh basically lecturing--or hectoring--Grace on one subject or another, mainly about how superior his society is. Polemics, anyone? It went on and on...and it got boring...and that's where the author lost me as a reader.

Additionally, the characters were underdeveloped. ScOsh, for someone who's supposed to be so advanced, comes across as annoyingly condescending. Grace seems to exist as a cipher for him, and the other characters didn't interest me at all. Overall, this story had potential, but it read like a first or second draft of a novel that could have been better if only the author had spent more time on it.

The author did not. If there's a sequel it might be better, but after reading this, I'm not apt to read it. While this novel wasn't terrible by any means, it could have been a LOT better.

[Mary Woldering · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book of a series of four. The Man from Empire is an alien called Guardian Osh “ScOsh” Scimtar who appears as a perfected or superior human. He is on Earth to locate "ston" rebels of various levels of skill and eliminate them. On his homeworld they had launched a terrorist attack that killed millions. Some came to earth.

He meets Grace a local office worker and, having prevented her death, begins to tell her of his world, its philosophy, his superior race, history and sciences that surpass those on earth. His race is advanced enough that his skills seem like magic, but he insists on training Grace.

The world building is deep, and actually overwhelming in detail that shows more of the author's knowledge of sciences and technology. Grace is an avid listener. The problem I had with the story is that although knowing this alien culture is very important in the setting and building of the world, it's just too much and comes off like a lecture. There are thrilling action scenes as the two battle demons but long descriptive lulls. It's not for the average reader, but is a delight for those who love long scientific and philosophical narratives.
An interesting read that might reach more readers with a tiny bit of pruning.

[Sadhana Wadhwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

You take a really good concept, weave a nice story around it. There's just one thing pulling it back from being touted as a 5-star rated one - that's the thing called "too much information".

This is exactly what's wrong with this book which is otherwise a brilliant and refreshing concept. I like the character sketch of Sc0sh but couldnt like Grace much, perhaps due to the weird way she was reduced to a self-concious or maybe stuck-on-appearance person. Or was it that she acted as the starting point for the other main character to start his oh so long monologues?

Like said before, the intriguing cover, nice concept and potential about the storyline all get wiped out by the frustratingly long information dump. It took me a lot of self-control to keep going on and finish it. These pointers are only to let the author know where to cut back on their next work and met out the brilliant plots as they should be :)

[Jake T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book feels like sitting through a boring lecture. One of the main characters prattles on about their philosophical and political beliefs for more than half the book. So little action, plot movement, or true character development. It feels like Dan Melson created a full-scale wiki for his fictional world and is trying to cram every last nugget from that wiki within the pages of this book.

Find a better sci-fi book to spend your time reading. The only thing The Man From Empire is good for is curing insomnia.

[Leland Lydecker · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the wake of a terrorist attack on his home colony that killed an unimaginable number of people, Guardian Osh “ScOsh” Scimtar tracks the killer through a portal to Earth. Office worker Grace Juarez witnesses his miraculous appearance in the middle of a rough neighborhood in Riverside, California, and winds up embroiled in ScOsh’s quest for justice.

It quickly becomes apparent that this isn’t your usual science fiction. The Guardians, and indeed most of ScOsh’s people, possess unique mental powers that he likens to magic. They are, however, more or less human. Having the ability to generate portals to nearby dimensions, ScOsh suspects that his people must have had contact with Earth in the distant past.

There are some tense moments as Grace and ScOsh escape demonic creatures sent to kill them, and the action scenes are fairly exciting. Given a sharper focus on ScOsh and Grace’s quest to track down and stop the killers who’ve set up shop on Earth, and a little more character development (especially in Grace’s case,) this could have easily been a four star read.

Unfortunately, The Man from Empire suffers from a bad case of telling rather than showing. Nearly half the book consists of ScOsh lecturing Grace on one subject or another, much of which is world-building for a place only visited during the prologue. Grace has so little dialogue in these interactions that it starts to feel like she exists just to give ScOsh someone to explain things to. One such conversation, which takes place over a meal at Denny’s, took up more than 10% of the book.

We’re told about nearly every facet of the society ScOsh comes from and why it’s vastly superior to Earth’s; but without anyone providing critical analysis of this supposedly utopian alien society, these lectures feel disappointingly one-dimensional. Clearly it’s not a perfect system, or there wouldn’t be a resistance element fighting the government. Unfortunately, ScOsh is blind to most of the faults of his society and Grace is similarly unable to provide a balanced point of view.

Both characters feel under-developed, and it never felt like either was particularly vested in the other’s survival. Using his vastly superior alien intelligence as justification, ScOsh views Grace as child. It’s an attitude that quickly passes from quirky to vaguely annoying to grating, and it was hard to believe that someone from Grace’s background would agree with that assessment– yet she does.

Overall, The Man from Empire feels like a rough draft of a scifi political terrorism thriller that’s being smothered by a mountain of exposition. I say rough draft because, in addition to the lack of character development and the anemic focus on the actual story, the formatting is peculiar for large sections of the book and there is quite a lot of missing punctuation.

I would have liked to enjoy this story more. With a rewrite and some editing, this could definitely be an entertaining read. Unfortunately, as it stands The Man from Empire’s flaws are too great and too numerous to ignore. Three stars.

[J.B. Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whether it’s through oral or telepathic communication, the author’s concepts of an alien culture and its ideals are transmitted from one main protagonist to the other more as an interactive dialogue rather than action, making this one read that true Sci-Fi world-building and civilization buffs will enjoy.

Melson’s alien, ScOsh, is rather one-dimensional and reminiscent of Keanu Reeves in the popular Sci-Fi film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, possessing a similar appearance and dry personality. His cerebral ramblings about the history, beliefs, morals, and the ethics of Earth and alien civilizations are quite lengthy and detailed, giving a detailed account of his world and those who govern it. ScOsh’s in-depth lectures may be a bit over-the-top for those readers who prefer more action than words and fare that is somewhat lighter than delving into material comparative to Hawking’s Theory of Everything or Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Graciela is a more rounded and likable character, providing an easy foil for ScOsh’s revelations, but her presence in the story suffers slightly as a result of her partner-protagonist’s overbearing role.

“The Man From Empire” is peppered with action scenes, and, from time to time, bizarre monsters that are seemingly conjured up from Satan’s own imagination thwart ScOsh and Grace’s progress to fulfill their mission. The battles produced by Melson are both spectacular and bloody as the pair strives to prevent these, and other evil entities, from assuming universal domination. The decisive clash toward the finale packs a real punch.

Patience, and perhaps a higher level of education, may be of benefit when reading through ScOsh’s expansive and sometimes ponderous lectures about his life, knowledge, abilities, and experiences. But if you love to delve into complex math and scientific theory, philosophy, and questions of existence, or if you’re a dedicated Sci-Fi fan who revels in complex space operas, “The Man From Empire” reaches the bar. In any event, Dan Melson is a Sci-Fi author to watch.