Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Passing Shadows
AUTHOR: Anna Butler
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 100 Pages
RELEASE DATE: December 12, 2016
BLURB:
Li Liang has found a berth to suit her: chief pilot and first officer of the all-female crew of an old space freighter, the Sappho. Then one ordinary, unremarkable morning, Liang retunes the Sappho’s communications systems just in time to catch the breathless, terrible accounts from Mars of the total destruction of Earth.
Earth’s a cinder. The unknown alien race that destroyed it has left Mars, too, in flames and is ravening outward from the solar system, devouring every human colony on the way.
Liang’s one of the few survivors, racing ahead of the Devourers, rescuing as many frightened, shocked people as she can. Will Liang and the pitiful remnants of humanity find a new haven, somewhere to start again? Or will she, too, echo the dreadful last message coming out of their dead home?
They’re coming. Oh God, they’re coming.
REVIEW:
I have some good news and some bad news. I’m going to start with the good…and we’ll get the other somewhere below…maybe…in an off-hand way. I’m still trying to decide what I feel.
Passing Shadows is a interesting set of three interconnected stories, providing quite detailed snippets into the life of a woman who witnesses the destruction of Earth by unknown aliens.
The first story really made me feel like I was there watching the events unfold. I felt what the main character, Li Liang, was thinking when she heard Earth go ‘off-line’ and then when she heard the details from Mars. I felt for her and the crew of the Sappho, a sort of broken down old space freighter crewed solely by women. I read along eagerly, guessing as it went what the disposition of the rescued civilians would be and then we came to a little mouth on breast action…and I thought to myself, well this is interesting.
Then I flipped the page…and I was abruptly pulled two years into the future. The breast was long gone. Suddenly, Li Liang is no longer on the Sappho, instead she is assigned to the ‘Alexander’ the Earth military ship leading the great flotilla through space with the last survivors. That was when I started getting rumbles of Battlestar Galactica (classic…not remake) in the back of my mind. The story kind of had similarities with the ragtag group of survivors off across the universe. But I digress. In this second one they discovered a planet with a long dead civilization…complete with bombed out buildings and an ancient library and art museum and I thought to myself, well this is interesting.
Then I flipped a page…and I was again abruptly pulled forward, another three years (I think), into the future and Li Laing had now been promoted to a position of some authority, and she was now in on the highest levels of discussions when they meet a living alien race. Again, I thought to myself, well this in interesting. This time I flipped the page and it was done.
So, let me tell you. I really enjoyed the three stories, which were each very well written, as I would expect from this author. I was okay (maybe…I’m still not that sure yet myself) with the jumps in time. What I wasn’t okay with was all the stuff that I felt I missed in between those jumps. We have a character who we think at first is a lesbian, but then turns out to be a bisexual, which was great, particularly since the guy is also a bisexual, and it sounds like a lot of the background characters were as well. And then she was back with a woman and saying she was predominantly into women. Again, fine with me, I hate labels.
I would so have liked to see more development here though. What is here is as well written as the rest of the books I’ve read from this author. I really like Li Liang. But my problem was, that that was it. The story went no further. I’d like a whole lot more. Dare we hope that this is the start of a new series? I, for one, would love to see where they go. Does this tie in with the Earth being long dead at the beginning of the Taking Shield series? We will have to wait and see!
I’m going to recommend this book. I liked the stories, even though they needed more in my opinion.
RATING: 
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