Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Beside A Burning Sea

By John Shors




John Shors is an up-and-coming author to watch for; “Beside A Burning Sea” is his second novel, and he does display real potential with this particular work.

The story is about a World War II medical ship stationed in the South Pacific. The reader learns in the first line that the ship is going to be torpedoed in ten minutes. Within the first few pages, the reader also learns that one of the American officers on the ship is a Japanese spy.

Nine survivors (out of hundreds of victims) swim to a nearby island as the ship sinks into the dark, night waters. The first chapter is dramatic and intriguing; one of the swimmers might not be strong enough to get to shore, another of the swimmers is the spy, the reader just has no idea which person it is until the second chapter.

The author could have continued to maintain the suspense regarding the spy once the survivors all reached the island. Admittedly, it was a tad disappointing when the spy was made immediately apparent to the reader. A little more mystery might have been fun.

While the first chapter was intriguing, the second was less so, and the third and fourth were hard to wade through. At this point, the reader still has no history of any of the characters, and therefore is unable to care about the characters. If you stick with the book to the fifth chapter, which I highly recommend you do, you will fall in love with the characters (except for the bad guy, who turns out to be really bad) and their island.

Shors paints a beautiful landscape for the island which becomes home. From colorful birds to pesky mosquitos, the reader feels they are there, sitting next to Akira (a Japanese patient from the ship) and Joshua (the ship’s captain) around the campfire on the beach. Each character takes on a life of their own and by the end of the book, you will hate to see anything unjust happen to any of them.

The book is set up so each chapter is a new day. Day 18 is the final chapter of the book. At the start of each chapter, the author supplies an appropriate haiku on the opposite page, as two of the central characters bond over poetry. When an author employs this tactic, it is oft the case that the chapters become too lenghty or weighty. That is not so with the chapter length in “Beside A Burning Sea.” Each chapter is segmented by page breaks as the reader follows each character around for a snippet, and they are of perfect length.

While some may read this book and think it carries an anti-war theme, it is still possible to read the book as just a novel and enjoy it as such. The characters in the book do not enjoy the war, but who does? They dream about the day they no longer have to live with war, but that is as most people who experience war firsthand do.

Though the imagery in “Beside A Burning Sea” is good, Shor’s strong suit seems to be his dialogue. Each character has a very clear and distinct voice. From the young British lad to the middle-aged engineer from Missouri, all the characters could be standing in front of you, speaking. This is the key that carries the story along at a nice pace.

“Beside A Burning Sea” is a good book. Not a great book, but I suspect Shor’s next book will be great. He is a young author and could very well be a great literary force someday. Read this book if you enjoy romance, history or war, and escapes to a faraway, if only temporary, paradise.

http://www.ReaderReport.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This story sounds captivating yet a bit slow on introducing the characters. I'm not a big fan of any kind of story involving war but this report clearly states that war is not the main focus and it just makes me want to go out and read it anyways! I love the way you describe the book and your enthusiasm for the author with his upcoming reads.