Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

Several months back I wrote a review of Scott Sigler’s podcast sci-fi novel Earthcore based on the first 5 podcasts. The review was largely positive, though I did note there didn’t seem to be much in the way of science fiction at that point. I also promised Scott that I’d write a full review when the podcast was complete.

Buy Earthcore

However, I fell behind in listening to Earthcore. So I’m only just getting round to offering a review of the complete audio podcast of Earthcore. Each podcast episode was around 40 to 50 minutes in length. The podcasts are narrated by Scott Sigler himself and he does a workmanlike job. My only real criticism of Sigler’s delivery is that I’m not a fan of his accents. At times his Australian accent jarred my nerves.

Scott did suffer from a number of production problems on some podcasts, but the end results on all the episodes was remarkably high quality.

On the story itself, this strongly reminds me of disaster movies and monster movies. The Sci-Fi elements dramatically increase in the second half of the novel, but the focus here is on the action not the science. The second half of the book all occurs within a very short period of time and the action is pretty much non-stop.

One thing I particularly like is that Sigler didn’t pull his punches or cop-out at any point. All the threats lined up at the beginning of the book were delivered on before the end. In fact I strongly recommend that you not get too attached to any characters as Sigler is ruthless at culling them throughout the novel.

Initally I felt that the characters presented in Earthcore were pretty broadly drawn, but as the story developed we found out quite a bit more about most of the main characters and in some cases discovered hidden depths to them. Never the less this is an action tale and the characters served the plot, not the other way round.

All in all I’d recommend you taking the time to download Earthcore as I found it to be a very enjoyable way to pass the drive to and from work. Sigler showed a real knack for keeping the tension high and the reader curious what would happen next. Apparently I’m not alone in this as a print version of Earthcore will be available on November 15th.

Earthcore seems to have been a big success for Scott and he is now podcasting another novel, Ancestor which is well worth your attention if you enjoyed Earthcore.

Link: Earthcore Podcast
Link: Ancestor Podcast