Lisa Wylie's "Burning Suns"

Title: Lights Spark

“Burning Suns Book One: Conflagration” by Lisa Wylie

Reviewed by Shelby Jo

6/27/16

5:00 p.m.

Burning Suns Book One: Conflagration by Lisa Wylie tosses tough, back-talking space captain Jennifer Bronwen and her unlikely companion, straight-laced politician Keera Naraymis, into an intergalactic adventure of political intrigue. The story alternates primarily between the two women’s perspectives as they team up in order to maintain peace as they know it.

The largest pitfall of the fantasy and science fiction genres is “plot for plot’s sake,” and Conflagration provides no relief from this trope. The inciting incidents are delicately arranged like a stack of dominoes to throw the main characters into the action of the book, rather than the incidents occurring naturally out of character-conscious decisions.

The characters of Conflagration may make this difficult, however, because they are not especially dynamic or well defined. The powerful female duo that leads the story is refreshing and entertaining, but unfortunately inconsistent. Jen and Keera have great potential to contrast and complement each other, once their characters are more thoroughly developed.

 Wylie cleverly includes planet Earth amidst the other fantastic and fictional galaxies in this space epic, without the planet serving as “home base” for any characters, a decision that significantly advances the world building and easily helps to ground the reader in the story. Wylie’s prose finds a comfortable, and enviable, middle ground; the story reads like fantasy or sci-fi without sounding contrived.

The author’s attempt to tell part of the narrative from the point of view of a cyborg character muddles the story. This was a bold move on Wylie’s part, and it does provide a unique perspective; however, she also attempts to relay intricate political complications in these sections that simply cannot come across to the reader with the stream of consciousness formatting.

I give “Conflagration” 3 out of 5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Shelby Jo