Book Review and Tour: Our Dried Voices by Greg Hickey

In 2153, cancer was cured. In 2189, AIDS. And in 2235, the last members of the human race traveled to a far distant planet called Pearl to begin the next chapter of humanity. Several hundred years after their arrival, the remainder of humanity lives in a utopian colony in which every want is satisfied automatically, and there is no need for human labor, struggle or thought. But when the machines that regulate the colony begin to malfunction, the colonists are faced with a test for the first time in their existence. With the lives of the colonists at stake, it is left to a young man named Samuel to repair these breakdowns and save the colony. Aided by his friend Penny, Samuel rises to meet each challenge. But he soon discovers a mysterious group of people behind each of these problems, and he must somehow find and defeat these saboteurs in order to rescue his colony.

I unintentionally had a theme this week for my reviews: a dire future for society. Greg Hickey presents the new humanity in an interesting way, slowly but surely filling the reader in on what is really going on. I’ll admit, this isn’t my favorite type of story-line but it wasn’t bad either.

Samuel was an interesting character in that we are viewing the world through his eyes. This colony is all he has ever known and life is a monotonous cycle each and every day, until one day that changes. I did get a bit frustrated with the story as it was hard from me to accept that Samuel was the only person to question what was happening. I understand that the idea Hickey was portraying was a futuristic society devoid of normal human behavior but it just frustrated me more than it was interesting.

 Our Dried Voices was a well thought out story, it just wasn’t for me. I would recommend it to lovers of dystopian sci-fi as this was definitely a new take on the genre and brought about a new perspective.

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was not monetarily compensated for my opinion.