This novel shows an unfortunate example of a writer who attempts far too much, trying to appeal to too many different types of reader, and ends up satisfying none of them.

The book starts out as a Military Action-Adventure. The opening involves a great firefight, full of technical jargon, esoteric weapons, and fast-paced fighting. But even at the start, flaws appear. (It’s been a long time since I came across the “unbeknownst to him” gambit, and it’s used twice in the first ten pages.) Then the CIA shows up, and we suspect it’s a Military/Spy tale. Fair enough. Then the first Nazis appear, and soon after that, a Sci-Fi element is introduced: an ancient undersea portal created by aliens. Later in the story there is a LitRPG incident, and by the end the main characters have become semidivine graphic novel superheroes.

Meanwhile, small but important elements are left out. Serious Sci-Fi fans will have trouble with missing details like the absence of an airlock between the ocean and the monolith interior. And how can you make a “center-mass shot” on a snake? I became completely lost when the main character bites a vampire and keeps the blood in his mouth. In the next chapter he transfers the DNA to his partner with a kiss.

There is a great deal of moral discussion in the story — science  versus religion plays a large role in the conflict — but there are so many explanations from different points of view that in the end the real theme is not clear.

There are also a lot of common writing errors, like sudden jumps in point of view and time. Also, the misuse of scientific terms like “event horizon” and opaque sentences like, “The Self was eliminated in favor of allusion.” Misuse of pronouns results in overuse of people’s names, misunderstanding about who is speaking, and even confusion over the gender of a character.

And all through, there is just plain awkward writing. “A tear slipped from her left eye. As if on cue, one was released from the professor’s pupil.”

But meanwhile, the plot is pounding rapidly ahead, with strong action sequences and many levels of conflict: internal, external, and interpersonal. Main characters have levels of stereotyping acceptable to all these genres, and there is plenty of mystery about what is actually going on.

This writer has some great ideas, but he has cobbled them together with a hodgepodge of memes from different genres, making the story difficult to follow and hard to believe in.

Three stars.

This review was originally posted on Reedsy Discovery.