Book Review: The Pandora Effect, Hotel Exotic Book 2, Steven Savanna
Science Fiction: The Pandora Effect, Hotel Exotic Book 2, Steven Savanna
- Space opera. Mixed genre. Totally unrealistic. Count me in!
An exceedingly wealthy man is found dead in one of the fancy rooms of the Hotel Exotic on a far away planet. In another room of the same hotel, another guest is also found dead at the same time. In most of the world that we know, the local police would be called to investigate, and the same is true on this planet. However, since a death in a hotel could open the company to liability, Lucas Honey, staff detective for the Hotel Exotic corporation, is also called.
Lucas Honey used to be a police officer. In his new role, he does not have the authority to arrest or interrogate a suspect. He also does not have to follow strict rules about chain of custody, evidence protection, or other niceties required from actual police officers. He has an almost unlimited budget, can go anywhere he needs and sleep in a company hotel and eat in a company restaurant. His secondary goal is to catch the bad guys, see justice done, etc. His primary goal is to make sure that the Hotel Exotic is not sued. That makes his job both easier and harder than the police. It’s easier in that he does not have his hands tied by procedures that protect the rights of the accused (I said easier though that is not the same as it being better). It is more difficult, though, because he does not have the power of the law backing him up. If he can prove the crime, the police will arrest the suspect. If he can’t, though, they won’t get involved–which can result in danger to himself and to those he loves.
Although this is “science fiction,” it’s probably best to kind of skip past the science and just let the story flow. Considering that most species on our planet cannot mate with another species and produce offspring, it is highly unlikely that a human and another sentient species could produce a child–even assuming the parents were, umm, compatible. (My apologies to Mr. Spock.) There is still no theory that supports faster than light speed travel, let alone any experimental evidence or engineering marvel that indicates any possibility. These are not unusual tropes for science fiction books (and movies and TV shows and…), but they do blur the lines between science fiction and fantasy.
Setting that to the side, Steven Savanna has written a fun book that brings in a variety of unique and interesting characters, has a good plot, and moves at a quick pace. Lucas Honey may not be the best detective in all the galaxy, but he can take a punch, he can hold his booze, and he can chase a lead across multiple solar systems. Sometimes that’s what you need to get the job done.
Our thanks to Reedsy for our copy of The Pandora Effect, provided with a request for an unbiased review. The opinions here are solely those of Scintilla.
Book Review: The Pandora Effect, Hotel Exotic Book 2, Steven Savanna