The Crimson Deathbringer. Sean Robins. Creativia (2019)

Hugely enjoyable and engaging space opera. Alien invasion of Earth with a twist sounds like a lot of other stories, the execution makes all the difference. Sean Robbins has the confidence to have big ideas and a huge cast as well as the craft to balance them. The narrative shifts across aliens and humans and to give each the space to engage the reader, everyone has a motive and a context and when they clash the action has weight and consequence. The plot mechanics are ruthlessly efficient, Sean Robbins pushes the story at a considerable pace and no one gets to escape unscathed. Victory for anyone is hard won and harder to maintain, everyone learns from their mistakes and has to make new ones to keep alive and in the struggle. The action is intense and beautifully staged, the reveals are cunningly timed and move the story forward with force and increasing momentum. The cast are hugely engaging, the leading characters are determined and individual, they drive the plot and are driven by the plot in a wholly satisfactory way. The walk on cast give depth and flavour to the story, Sean has a gift for very quickly introducing a character who is fully fledged in a short space, there is nothing impersonal about this conflict. Aliens and humans are given scope and motive so that the struggle between them has depth and engagement. 

Sean Robins’ control of the narrative is impressive, there are a huge number of shifting viewpoints, including a first person narrative, none it is is confusing. The structure gives the room for a widespread look at the conflict and moves from the global to the specific with ease and impact. It opens the scope of the story very nicely, placing Earth in the middle of a galactic struggle naturally and effectively. You do need a high tolerance for pop culture references and jokes, they never get in the way of the story, they do not quite come off cumulatively as Sean Robbins might have intended. They hide the character who indulges in them the most a little more than they reveal him.

I do have a concern with the attrition rate in the cast. Not the fact that it is high, rather that it does not bend the story the way it should. The reader is encouraged to have an investment in some of the cast, they take up enough story space to become significant and their demise does not have the following impact that I would have expected. 

I bought this book to support a colleague, I read it because I love science fiction, I greatly enjoyed it because Sean Robbins has delivered a great story that pulls the reader into the action with tremendous skill and confidence. I strongly recommend it because the benefits of reading excellent science fiction are clinically proven to improve your joy in living. Do yourself a favour, get the benefits of first rate space opera that The Crimson Deathbringer so happily delivers.