****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
he Man from Pontiac and the Martian Coverup sucked me in from page one. Set in the not-so distant future of humanity, the world that author Fred Jenny builds is as believable as it is fantastic. Jenny’s world-building is some of the best I’ve seen from a first-time author, and despite the high stakes and vastly different world Coverup’s Earth is from ours, I had no issue imagining it for myself or believing its possibility. As a fellow fan of “those old Star War films,” I can tell Jenny has an affinity for sci-fi classics of old and new; I see influences from Star Wars, The Martian (obviously), 2001: A Space Odyssey, a little Star Trek here and there, and even some Total Recall. Not to say that he borrows from the sci-fi landscape around him, rather Jenny’s near-future Earth and Mars feels just as believable as that from Total Recall or Blade Runner.Coverup has an assortment of characters, the standouts being Julius and Abigail of course. Along with a supporting cast of characters straight out of Alien or Guardians of the Galaxy, the world Jenny created feels lived in with an assortment of people that make it come to life. Julius embodies the amazement and curiosity that seems innate to mankind, almost the physical embodiment of the feeling you get watching footage of the moon landing, or the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landing on Mars, or the Pale Blue Dot photo taken by Voyager 1. We’re rooting for him to get a chance to go to Mars, and when his named is finally called we’re praying alongside Julius that he’ll survive training and make it on Mars, all the while a plot full of mystery, deception, and intrigue slowly builds on the peripheral, culminating in a jailbreak shootout that leaves readers on a cliffhanger.The world and story of The Man from Pontiac and the Martian Coverup is what brought me into the world created by Jenny. I was truly bought into this world he had built, and just like the characters I wanted to know what secrets were hidden on Mars. A confident premiere work for a beginning author, Jenny still has areas to improve in as a writer. Some of the dialogue felt clunky at times; there were lines or conversations where I was taken somewhat out of the moment because I felt the characters were not talking like real people. Or a conflict would arise and just as quickly be resolved. And there were multiple times where the point of view of the character would change in the middle of the page, sometimes in a paragraph, which always caught me off guard and had me re-read the previous paragraph to make sure I understood what’s going on. Again, I contribute this to it being Jenny’s first book ever, and overall don’t take anything away from the story Jenny is telling. I would have also liked to see a little more characterization of some of the cast in the book: many of the periphery characters seemed a shallow to me. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of these characters in the future, I’m a big fan of Dig Team Mike, but the supporting characters, and especially the story’s villain, could use a little fleshing out.The Man from Pontiac and the Martian Coverup is a fantastic first foray into the world that author Fred Jenny has clearly been crafting for many years now. The world is a huge, detailed, lived-in universe that feels like it could fit right into the extended universe of the Halo video game franchise, one that is equal parts fantastical and believable, awesome and possible. I hope to someday read more about Julius, Abigail, and the The Man from Pontiac and the Martian Coverup crew.
