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lilyn_g's review
3.0
Absolute Zero just could not hold my attention. I struggled to get through it, and only pressed on because it was only 220 pages. Most of that is because it feels like it did not get the attention of an editor. I can show you what I mean with this one line from the book.
“At the corner, Lieutenant Murray Bell peaked around the edge and screamed!”
Of course, there are the times sentences just outright don’t make sense. Also, the author has an odd sense of timing for using italics. So when he chooses to use them on a wrong word to boot, it’s a bit awkward.
“The damage is, around here, unpreparable.”
There’s a great story buried within the uneven writing of Absolute Zero. Sometimes the author is able to clearly communicate what he is seeing in his head, and when that happens, the story shines. Other times, though, the writing slips drastically in quality, as the though author forced the words out to be able to move on to the next scene. And, often, it felt like he was trying to meet a certain word count and that meant repeating himself in different ways to up his numbers.
This occurs not only with rephrased individual sentences but with basic ideas as well.
I did like Tomasso’s characters, though. He writes men that aren’t afraid to admit when they’re scared, and strong women. They’re not always likable, and their dialogue (internal and external) isn’t always fantastic, but they are easy to empathize with. I was rooting for the team from the moment they hit the compound.
Neptune is a fascinating planet – I mean, it rains diamonds – and this is the first book I’ve read set on it. I liked the aliens what the crew encounter on the surface. I don’t want to think too hard about them, but I liked them. Tomasso has a solid imagination and you can tell he likes to give the reader a generous portion of action scenes. This is what kept me going even when I repeatedly felt like walking away from the book because of the issues with it.
Overall, regarding the story itself, Absolute Zero is a fun read. However, it was also a mostly painful read filled with repetition, errors, and issues that just generally made me want to smack my head against a wall. It is a big enough problem that I just cannot recommend this book.