Children of na by andy Burgess

Title: Children of Na
Author: Andy Burgess
Read Type: Indie Published
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Existing within dimensional space for a chance to live again, an alien consciousness is reborn into the body of a plantation slave. While trying to escape his Earthly prison, Silas finds himself teleported through time and captured by the Nazis. Only Yakob Alexandrov, a fugitive Russian scientist, stands

between the slave and a maniacal SS General bent on using the alien technology to dominate the world.

Strong Some
Drugs: None
Violence: Graphic
Sexual content: Negligible

I received a free copy of this novel in return for an unbiased review.

The novel begins with a description of a horrible looking creature, giving the impression it is evil. The it smoothly switches tracks and spends the next few pages explaining how it was genetically engineered by the people of the planet for particular labour, making you feel affection for it as it tries to escape the dying planet and slavery.

The next few chapters confused me a bit as to why they were there. They alternated between World War II Russia and an early 19th century slave plantation in America with nothing seeming amiss in either location, or in any way connected. The locations and characters were superb, it was almost like reading two good historical novels at the same time. The reason for this though didn't begin to materialise until around 20% for me, and not become clear until around 40% which I felt was too slow and partly down to the writing.

On the "artefact" found: one thing I will say is this is what confused me and threw me off the plot I think. It seemed to be very different sizes in the two time zones. I thought it was about man-height, a bit like your local baker who lives off the leftover pastries! It is however, considerably bigger, I would estimate the size of 4 or 5 people stood back to back in a circle.

Later on the story moves into one time zone, but this is where I felt it fell apart a bit. There was far too much focus of battles, especially on the mechanics, leaving emotions to the side (This had been an issue to a certain extent in the early chapters, but was far less noticeable, and therefore stood out less). It became hectic and, instead of being led by the wonderfully filled out characters, it felt more like superficial adventure with some characters seeming to have a personality transplant.

I was disappointed in the author's choice of direction after having had such a unique beginning. It felt like your regular lads action book by the end with disappointing  finishes for many of the characters, including a lack of explanation of one main cast member.

There were so many other directions the story could have gone in. Usually I loathe the info-dumps found in novels where the history of a planet, or some other complex system is explained, but the ones in here, despite being several pages each really kept my attention and left me wanting more, wanting to see it. These showed the diamonds the author could produce when they wanted.

Throughout the first part of the novel I was sure I would be giving a 4 at the very least, but having to include all of the novel I can only give a 3