Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Earth is cooling rapidly, and no one knows why. When the mystery is revealed, it's up to Emma, the last survivor of the International Space Station, and James, an imprisoned scientist with a dark secret, to save us all. The characters found within Winter World are faced with great peril and struggle, yet at the same time, so too is the reader. One could go on and on about the scientific inaccuracies, the impossible speed at which new technologies are developed and implemented, and other pitfalls commonly found in stories of this genre, but this is science fiction, and at some point you have to give the author some slack for the sake of story progression. No, the struggle for any reader of Winter World can be found within the most basic elements of its storytelling. The first technical issue becomes immediately apparent within the first couple chapters -- neither of protagonists have a discernible voice. Both James and Emma are virtually interchangeable. Telling two first person narratives in parallel is fine, but it requires a great deal of forethought and planning on the author's part in order to draw up two unique characters with their own personal histories, quirks, desires, fears, perceptions, etc., and allow these attributes to develop into a unique voice for each character. I get the impression that Riddle didn't really care enough about James and Emma, resulting in their sameness, and an indifference towards their fate on the part of the reader. Another annoyance is the manner in which Riddle doles out revelations. In the beginning of the book, we learn about the threat facing Earth and its cause fairly quickly, but nothing else is revealed until the last 50 or so pages (though any avid sci-fi reader should be able to piece everything together by the book's midpoint.) The vast majority of story is expository fluff. On multiple occasions Riddle has his characters lose consciousness, wake up sometime later at a different location, and then info dump on everything that happened while the character was out. This is kind of storytelling is cheap, and demonstrates that Riddle does not know how to properly express the world he's created through his characters. Anyway, back to the revelations issue. The primary conflict that occurs between James and Emma is that James has a secret. Problem is, pretty much everyone else in the story is aware of this secret except Emma. Anytime Emma tries to learn what this secret is from someone, their answer is always, "Nah, it's better if James tells you." I don't know about anyone else, but if I were going to get involved with someone who had been arrested by the FBI and sentenced to life in prison, I would be fairly demanding of answers. Multiple times throughout the story, Emma says to herself, "James knows something and won't tell me, but I don't want pry." At any time Emma could have attempted to figure things out on her own, but Riddle keeps her naive and ignorant as a means of keeping the reader hooked until the end. When trying to think of a way of expressing how preposterous and dumb the ending is while not spoiling anything, all I can think of is the ending of the second Matrix movie. Neo confronts the architect of the Matrix, which has manifested itself as an old man. The architect explains to Neo the true nature of the Matrix, and the function of "The One." Neo is given choice -- either reinsert himself into the Matrix and save humanity, or fight and risk dooming humanity to extinction. The ending to Winter World is almost beat for beat the exact same thing. Oh, and James' Big Secret is revealed, which ends up being pretty lame, and has no effect on the story whatsoever. All in all, Winter World is story with a promising premise that fails to deliver in every possible way. Riddle tries to piece together hard sci-fi, romance, and a lame attempt at political intrigue, but he is clearly not well-versed enough in any of these areas to create a coherent narrative. Skip this one.