Review: The Empyrean Gate

The Empyrean Gate by Z. Rockward
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well, opening with an explicit masturbation scene: I did not expect that from anything in the blurb.

I also didn't pick up from "Part I" in the title that this is a serial, and this part is not anything like being a complete story. Nothing is resolved at the end.

Also: a polluted Earth has taken to launching junk into space first (headed for the sun), and sorting through it for valuables afterwards (rather than recycling it on Earth)? And those valuables include manuscripts and artworks? I roll to disbelieve, and score a natural 20. No; the junk satellite makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and is simply a thin excuse to get the main character involved in the wider story.

The main character herself is what I call a "spoiled protagonist," who's treated as if she has standing and should be allowed to be involved in everything, including top-secret stuff, even though this also makes absolutely no sense. The love interest even says that it doesn't make sense, repeatedly and at length, and he's right.

There may be some startling future revelation of why this character is so special, but I won't be reading any further. I nearly gave up partway through as it was, and had it not been so short that I was already more than 80% of the way through, I probably would just have stopped.

Not helped by the fact that my least favorite piece of corporate jargon, "moving forward," is used four or five times, meaning "in future" or "from now on" (or occasionally not meaning very much at all).

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