#thescalexwrites

Two more weeks, and all of the major editing will be finished. From there, formatting the manuscript for publication, finalizing the cover, writing the Acknowledgements and the Appendix, and all the while, the clock…keeps…ticking.

The cover of Perihelid, Book 3 of 7 in the Recovery Series

Release Date: October 17, 2017

Embassy (Book 1) Resonance (Book 2) Experience Daliona

SYNOPSIS BELOW (CONTAINS SPOILERS OF RESONANCE)

Two Days...

Perihelid by S. Alex Martin (Recovery #3)

Genre: Sci-Fi, New Adult Page #: 334 Publisher: CreateSpace Published in: 2017

I received this book as an ARC from the author, and I'm so glad that I did. After the massive cliffhanger of the last book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one and see what happens. Unfortunately, grad school reading and MA thesis writing got in the way, so I wasn't able to pick it up until just now. When I was finally able to read it, I devoured it.

Official Synopsis

The Fleet is in Ruins.

The Drake vanished in the chaos, and thousands are dead. A rescue crew could be weeks, even months away, and Arman Lance and the Ember’s other survivors must find a way to survive until it does – if help is coming at all.

As efforts are made to determine the cause of the crash, Arman struggles against the relapse of thoughts weighing heavily on his mind, threatening to unravel the purpose he has tried to create for himself since joining the Embassy Program.

In the aftermath, the survivors discover what could be the most important revelation in centuries: the crisis on Belvun may mark the beginning of an even more desperate disaster. It will force Arman to make a choice, one that will determine the course of humanity's future...

...at the cost of sacrificing his own.

My Review

The character development in this book is phenomenal. Arman has grown so much over the course of this series, and he's very reflective of that throughout the course of this book. He has a rich inner world and self-reflectiveness that I haven't seen in sci-fi. It was also really interesting to see how the side characters in the book handled the same crisis and how they interacted with each other when trapped in such close quarters after the tragedy in Resonance.

Sci-fi can sometimes be hard for me to read because I prefer character-driven stories, and often I find that sci-fi sacrifices character in favor of the plot, setting, and technology. That is not the case in this series, and especially so in Perihelid. There is a balance of character, plot, and setting that favors rich character development while still creating a believable other world and crafting a plot with an intense buildup. The last 100 pages or so were so intense, and I love the way that the author tied all the little ends together from the rest of the series in the big reveal. There are certain things, like Glacia's fate and what happens to Arman at the very end, that I wish were made more clear, but I'm hoping those questions will be answered in Book 4.

I have to say that I also loved the mental illness representation in this series. As someone who has dealt with severe anxiety and depression my whole adult life and for most of my teenage years, I have to say that I can really relate to Arman and the way he thinks. When I started reading this series, I wasn't necessarily expecting to find such accurate mental illness representation in a sci-fi book, and yet this series delivers that representation in a way I haven't seen much before, especially in genre fiction. I think we need more stories like this one, where the hero in a sci-fi book grapples with mental illness. Mental illness is not the main focus of the series or of this book, but it's an inextricable part of Arman's character. This story shows the truth of mental illness: that it is always a part of us, but it does not define our lives or stop us from doing great things.