Eomix Galaxy Books: Identity by Christa Yelich-Koth

When you end a book, movie or an episode of a television series in a way that informs the reader or viewer that the story will continue, speculation, especially now through the use of the Internet, can run quite rampant. People who enjoyed your work may begin to dissect everything that happened and devise their own theories about what’s to come and what should happen to the characters they love, leading to high expectations that more than likely will be crushed under the hammer of the author’s plans. One recent example of this phenomenon is Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which subverted a lot of fan theories and upset a lot of people because it didn’t go the way they thought it should. This is a tricky thing to navigate for writers, but that shouldn’t stop them from telling the story they are inclined to write. It is up to the reader to subvert their own prejudicial expectations; if they can’t, there’s nothing the writer can really do about that. But when they can, it becomes a much richer experience for the reader as they enjoy the evolution of the story the way it was meant to be told.

In my review for Christa Yelich-Koth’s novel, Eomix Galaxy Books: Illusion, I thought it was a little off-putting that the book didn’t feel complete; the story abruptly ended without any real closure on the events that happened. My feelings haven’t changed after reading the second half of the story, Eomix Galaxy Books: Identity, which does a good job of bringing the story to a satisfying conclusion. The thing is, had the two books been combined into one larger piece, a lot of what feels superfluous and repetitious could have been stripped, leaving behind a story and pace that would have made the entire thing that much more riveting.

Identity picks up a few days after the events of Illusion, but the focus of the book dramatically shifts from the trials and tribulations of our original heroine, Daith, to a rescue mission orchestrated by her friend, Torrak. This shift might be somewhat jarring for those who are more interested in Daith and how she handles the events of the last book, but where I thought Daith and her journey was the most exciting part of Illusion, her storyline becomes quite flat for the first two-thirds of Identity, giving way for Torrak and his adventure to become the highlight of this chapter in the Eomix Galaxy series.

Because Torrak was a witness to Daith’s abduction by Trey Xiven, the commander of the Aleet Army, he is now a target of clean-up attempts by Xiven to hide what happened. When Torrak wakes up in the hospital, he quickly learns that he’s the only person who remembers Daith. Not even her own sister can remember (and when she starts to, the mind-altering drug she was given causes her to forget once again). So it is up to Torrak and his best friend Kalil to find out what happened and rescue her from Xiven’s nefarious plans. Along the way, the two unlikely heroes run into a bevy of colorful characters who help Torrak track her across the galaxy in one form or another, while being pursued by one of Xiven’s assassins.

Meanwhile, Daith continues her struggle to find peace with her new life. She still isn’t quite sure who to trust, and her determination for revenge grows stronger as Xiven and the Aleet Army get closer to their ultimate destination. To prepare her for the eventual war on Xiven’s home planet of Sintaur, Daith begins training with a new mentor, Cenjo, who starts to have reservations about where everything is heading. He isn’t quite sure Xiven is on the up-and-up, so he keeps a watchful eye over the both of them to hopefully prove himself wrong.

A lot of what happens with Daith feels a bit repetitive as she continues her training and fights her daemons — in this case, her dreams — for control over her powers. At the same time, some of what happens to Torrak feels like a waste of time, as it doesn’t do anything much for the story. Take for example a scene in which Torrak stops on a planet to fuel his ship. Though this is an example of grounding the story in reality, the entire moment of him landing and fueling takes up about a page or so where nothing at all significant happens. Something like this could have been mentioned in one quick sentence in passing and no one would have batted an eye as to the realities of space travel.

It is instances such as these when I wish Illusion and Identity would have been combined into one book. This way, the timeline could have been condensed so it didn’t feel so stretched out, and both Daith and Torrak’s stories could have been told simultaneously, making the pace much quicker and keeping our interest more contained.

But with all of that aside, the last third of Identity almost makes up for everything. Christa does a terrific job setting up all of the character arcs to lead to an explosive finale that is written with an extraordinary flair, wrapping everything up in a way that was wonderfully unexpected, giving weight to Daith’s character and ending Torrak’s wild, fun adventure on a high Illusion failed to achieve.

My Grade: A-

Christa Yelich-Koth is an award-winning author and graphic novelist, and co-founder and head of submissions for Buzz & Roar Publishing. Born in Milwaukee, Christa graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, which helps her when writing creatures and worlds in her science fiction. She writes because “I love creating something that pulls me out of my own world and lets me, for a little while, get lost inside someone or someplace else.”

Check out all of Christa’s social media platforms:

Christa Yelich-Koth

Author Blog

Amazon Author Page

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

YouTube

If you are an independent author and would like your book reviewed, let me know in the comments section with a link to where I can purchase the book. If I find it intriguing, and it’s something I think I’d like, I will purchase a copy and add it to my reading list. I will be doing one independent book review per month, so not all requests will be accepted.

Eomix Galaxy Books: Illusion by Christa Yelich-Koth

There’s been a debate among authors and readers of independent books for quite a while in regards to the etiquette surrounding a book series. As more and more authors choose the independent route over traditional publishing, there seems to be a mindset that you can’t be successful unless you’re writing a book series. One of the major points of contention is how to end the initial book in a series. Some say that if it’s a series, then we should know that everything may not wrap up properly; others will say a first book in a series should stand on its own. If you look at some of the more successful book series, such as Harry Potter or The Dark Tower, the answer tends to be the latter — the first book in the series may have an overarching goal that isn’t necessarily reached, but the book itself has a complete story. Only in the later books do the stories start to intermingle and become less structured, but by then, we’re already heavily invested. A lot of times, having a first book in a series that doesn’t have a complete story makes it feel as if the author opted to divide their story in two because they feel it was easier to sell two 300-page books as opposed to one 600-page book.

I’m not sure what Christa Yelich-Koth’s process was as she wrote Eomix Galaxy Books: Illusion, but even before you begin reading, you already know this is only the first book of at least two, so either it was planned that way or it was split for the sake of, in my opinion, an arbitrary word count. Either way is fine, so long as there is a complete story arc that doesn’t make the novel feel incomplete. Sadly, Illusion feels more like a movie studio splitting a novel into two parts simply to extend a series past it’s expiration date. Christa slowly and expertly leads her story on a path to a specific destination, but then pulls the rug out from under us by providing no closure without spending more money on the next book.

Illusion follows Daith Tocc, a normal girl living a quiet life until she’s abducted and has her memory completely erased by Trey Xiven, commander of the space vessel, Horizon. It’s quickly learned that Trey believes Daith to be the daughter of his former commanding officer, Jacin Jaxx, a very powerful being in the universe, and is hoping to use Daith as a weapon to secure peace in the Eomix Galaxy. To do so, he recruits his brother, Dru, to run several tests on her in order to find out if she truly is what he thinks, and whether she harbors the same power her father did.

The reason I felt there wasn’t any closure is because there aren’t any full character arcs. As Daith goes through her trials and discovers a few breakthroughs in her powers, nothing actually happens to solidify a change in her or any of the other characters. In other words, she learns how to tap into her skills, but with the exception of a few smaller moments and revelations, she doesn’t ever have a chance to utilize them the way I hoped she would (or in the way she eventually will in the next book).

That aside, the book does have some intriguing concepts and a few interesting characters. Both Daith and Dru are extremely likeable; together, they have some of the best parts of the book. Whenever Christa stepped away from them to focus on Trey, I wanted to get back to Dru and Daith and their budding relationship. For whatever the reason, Trey never really connected with me. I’m not sure if it was because of the character, how he was written, or because most of his focus was on the life of Jacin Jaxx, most of which fell a little flat for me. I was much more interested in Daith and how she was going to handle her newfound gifts than I was in learning the history of Jacin Jaxx and how he handled his powers.

Which brings up another interesting topic in the structure of the story itself. In the first chapter, we’re introduced to Daith before she gets her mind wiped, which is all well and good, but with a story like this, a lot of the intrigue comes with not knowing who she was before her memory was erased. By this I mean, the urgency of Daith’s predicament isn’t as strong as it could have been. Had we, the reader, woken up with Daith on the ship without knowing anything about her or her past, and were able to learn everything right alongside her, we would have been able to connect with her more than we already do, heightening an air of mystery that is non-existent since we already know why everything is happening.

Don’t get me wrong, the majority of Illusion is well-written (there are some moments that feel a little stale and dialogue that gets a little stunted), and Daith’s storyline kept me interested, I just wish we would have seen a better, more developed arc that led Daith to examine her powers beyond the mere accident or test that fill the majority of the book.

My Grade: B+

Christa Yelich-Koth is an award-winning author and graphic novelist, and co-founder and head of submissions for Buzz & Roar Publishing. Born in Milwaukee, Christa graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, which helps her when writing creatures and worlds in her science fiction. She writes because “I love creating something that pulls me out of my own world and lets me, for a little while, get lost inside someone or someplace else.”

Check out all of Christa’s social media platforms:

Christa Yelich-Koth

Author Blog

Amazon Author Page

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

YouTube

If you are an independent author and would like your book reviewed, let me know in the comments section with a link to where I can purchase the book. If I find it intriguing, and it’s something I think I’d like, I will purchase a copy and add it to my reading list. I will be doing one independent book review per month, so not all requests will be accepted.