Sunday, May 21, 2017

The Terra Debacle: Prisoners at Area 51The Terra Debacle: Prisoners at Area 51 by Marcha A. Fox

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Get ready for Thyron. He is a peda flora telepathis; in other words a sentient, bipedal, telepathic plant. He not only communicates telepathically, he acquires knowledge remotely. While imprisoned at the infamous Area 51, he stumbled onto a treasure trove of information and overdosed himself by assimilating it, which caused him to lapse into a dormant state. This triggered a panic in Gabe Greenly, astrobotanist for NASA. Greenly nursed Thyron back to a healthy state and was rewarded with a handful of seedpods.

Thyron’s vegetable chauvinism makes him highly opinionated. He bristles at the nature of paper, he thinks lumber is a crime against botany, vegetarians are serial murderers, and a harvester is a weapon of mass destruction. He cuts Gabe some slack since he is a fruitarian and can gain sustenance without killing the fruiting plant. This makes for a strange relationship, because Gabe is bound by his security agreement, which forbids abetting an escape, and Thyron’s goal is to get off the earth at all costs, along with an artificially intelligent robot—since disassembled—and a humanoid girl.

Marcha Fox has not only created a phyla, she has invented multiple vocabularies. The psychic terminology is plain enough to understand, but you might want to read The Terra Debacle on an ereader with a built-in dictionary to help decipher the botanical terms. This is a brilliant story, extremely well written and with great character development. It is off-the-wall in a way that is similar to how Tom Robbins grabs the reader and shakes him. The research is profound and convincing. It is loosely aimed at the young adult audience, of which I am not a member; however, I recommend it for anyone who wants to venture into a leafy new world.

Buy a pre-order at Amazon for $.99

Same price at Smashwords and you can download both Kindle and Nook copies

Release date: May 30, 2017



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2 comments:

  1. Wow! Thanks, Scott! Glad you liked it. It was quite a trip to write.

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  2. Excellent review. I've read enough of Scott's work to respect and trust his opinion. I've already pre-ordered my copy, and I look forward to spending time with Thyron again. Thanks for reminding us it's time for another Star Trails Tetralogy adventure by Marcha Fox!

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