Book Series :: Spiral Arm

You know what I’m getting tired of? Book covers that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the book. I get the whole “first impression” bit. I understand the very essential concept of getting a potential buyer to just pick up the book. I also know that publishing books is a business. But honestly? The amount of false advertising present on book covers today just ticks me off. Then again, I have no idea what kind of cover might have persuaded me to pick this book up in the first place had it had only dealt with the concepts presented therein, and not been entirely based on a metaphor of the story instead. So, a quandary for you: False-advertising? Or no sales? Option number three, if you ask me.
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I’m just not getting it. Science Fiction. I hate the fact that I sometimes sound like a broken record, but there’s just so little SF out there that I’ve read to prove me wrong that I just can’t help but feel jaded. The up-side is that as long as it’s well-written, I’m not going to rip into too much, because if there’s one thing that is consistent and good about these books, it’s the prose.

IN THE LION’S MOUTH (Amazon) by Michael Flynn is the third installment in his most recent space opera series featuring the inimitable Donovan Buigh.  I wasn’t very keen on the second, UP JIM RIVER (EBR Review), but I decided that to be fair, I had better read the first, THE JANUARY DANCER (Amazon), before diving into this one.  Unfortunately, I needn’t have bothered, for I just found more of the same: a beautifully-written story with a swiss cheese of a plot that ended with me asking, “What was the point of that?”
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