Having an interest in self-publication for some years, I was intrigued to get my hands on a novel published by someone who had actually done it.  Unfortunately, I must confess that after reading Project Avalon I am very wary of self-publication and have no intention of following such a path at any time in the future with my own novels.  That may seem hypocritical because I publish this non-professional internet magazine and on occasion put my own stories in it.  Maybe it is hypocrisy.  Maybe it isn't.  You be the judge.

I wonder if Mr. Howerton submitted his novel to some of the big publishing houses.  Del Rey, Tor, Avanova, ect.  If he didn't, I believe that all of the big houses would have rejected Project Avalon.  Now, I don't make a habit of writing bad reviews in Titan, and I stewed over writing this review for several weeks after reading the novel.  It was not an easy decision, but I think there is something to be gained by it.

The novel begins well enough with a scene from the life of a young boy, Gary by name, who lives on the moon and is the great-grandson of Gary LaFey, one of the original inhabitants of the first Moon Base Avalon.  This particular morning was a special one for Gary.  The entire structure of school that day was going to center around his great-great-grandfather Art, Gary LaFey's father.  He mentions that Art was spoken of little in the family circle and alludes to the fact there there was some great conflict between Art and his son Gary and that no one was willing to talk about it.  Gary hoped that his lesson at school would shed some light on this great conflict.  I must admit that, at the end of the book, I was sorely disappointed.  This foreshadowing was completely ignored.  After Gary had watched a simulated holovid of the history of Avalon, he asked about the great conflict and was told that it had been saved for another class day and would not be answered at that time.  Saved for the sequel, too, I guess.  Some of the slang used by Gary and his friends as they are traveling to school that morning was quite interesting and creative.  I was eager and ready for a good story.

After arriving at school, Gary and his fellow students put on their "holohelmets" to watch the holo-movie of the life of Art, Gary's great-great-grandfather.  And so the story switches to Art's point of view.

I won't go into the details of the book, but I will make some general comments about characterization, ect.  I felt that the characters were quite narrow and...what's the word?  Sporadic?  Inconsistent?  Right at the start, I detected that something was amiss between Art and his wife and there was foreshadowing that Art would fall for another woman who worked for a huge company named Lindstrom.  I never got any real sense of what exactly was wrong between Art and his wife.  Other than the fact that Art seemed quite naive and was an alcoholic.  Almost every scene contained a bottle of beer.  They drank and drank and drank.

As the story progressed, it seemed very hollywood-ish.  There was a chase scene involving two goons wearing obligatory black suits and sunglasses.  There was the obligatory prey-runs-into-the-vendor-and-knocks-all-the-fruit-into-the-street moment of tension that was too trite to be tense.  Some of the key characters seemed forced.  They tried to be bad guys buy just didn't cut it.

Art had a son, too.  It seemed to me that the son was ignored.  I wondered all the time where he was, what he was doing.  He was, after all, the one Gary had mentioned he was going to learn about in school.  There was little mention of him from time to time.

It turned out that Art's wife left him and her son Gary.  I never did know much about Art's wife and felt she was out of character.  I don't know how many mothers simply pack up and leave their children and husbands, but I 'm sure it happens.  It just wasn't very shocking to me and didn't create any feelings of sympathy for the child or for the mother.

Art falls in love with a woman named Mara who turned out to be Mr. Lindstrom's daughter.  Mr. Lindstrom was funding a private group that was planning to build the first lunar colony.  Somehow, and I think miraculously, they were able to keep their work a complete secret.  Even the many launches of people and supplies into space didn't catch anyone's attention.  I don't think present-day society would miss any of that.  There are too many people looking into the sky.  One thing that bothered me were the constant revelations Mara gave Art throughout the book.  She was the heir to Lindstrom Industries and Art didn't know it until he had lived with her in her Scottish mansion for weeks.  She managed to hide from him that she was running Lindstrom Industries and continuing to lead Project Avalon after her father was murdered.  She would have been so busy that Art couldn't possibly have missed it.

The whole murder of Mr. Lindstrom and the ensuing scenes were very hollywood-ish and hard to believe.  They found evidence of who had killed him and confronted the man who was responsible.  But the confrontation was only bribery.  There was no formal investigation, no thought or mention of putting the man in jail.  And, of course, the bad guy falls to the wayside for several pages only to appear again at the end, so hardened and angry that he sends off three nuclear missiles to blow up the lunar colony.   This was happening while earth itself was plagued by a manufactured, biological virus that killed everyone but Arabs.  They were given the antidote, the rest of the world doomed to die.

The scenes that were supposed to be tense, in my humble opinion, failed.  Unfortunately, I heard myself say, "Oh, please!" many times throughout the reading.  The quick exodus to the moon was rushed.  There were several people on the moon who had had no formal training in any sort of space travel.

I found many typos and punctuation errors.  One thing that was very strange was the use of parenthesis.  To begin with, I don't like parenthesis.  A good old-fashioned comma does just fine for me, but Mr. Howerton uses parenthesis in the middle of dialogue.  That was very distracting and strange.  I've never seen anyone use parenthesis in the middle of dialogue.

I know that I've been a little harsh in my review, so I'll say what I liked about it.  The scientific aspects, when they were spoken of, were plausible.  I'm no scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I know Howerton did a good job here.  Despite the fact that I really didn't like the book, I did come away with a heightened sense of urgency to go back to the moon.  And I was inspired to read more fiction that deals with these issues.  I've picked up Ben Bova's Moonrise and look forward to reading it.  Having read Ben Bova's Mars some years back, I must admit that Project Avalon just didn't cut it as a professional work of fiction.  I am truly sorry I feel that way, but I cannot tell a lie.  Writing Science Fact is completely different than writing Science Fiction.

Mr. Howerton mentioned in a letter enclosed with his novel that he was happy to be able to self-publish his novel because he was able to tell it exactly how he wanted to tell it.  Well, I think such an attitude might bad for a novel.  Having read many many works of fiction published by the big houses, I have to admit that the editors of those big houses really do know what they're doing.  They know good fiction when they read it.  And they make it better by making suggestions and editing.

Moral of the story?  Be wary of self-publication!  If it isn't good enough for the big houses, it probably won't do well after you've shelled out a ton of money to publish it yourself.

Last of all, I think YOU should read the book and tell me what you think of it. Prove my review in error. Tell me it was a great book! Okay? Simply click on the image of the cover below to buy it at Amazon.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Review written by Chad Cottle