Click Here To Purchase From Amazon NeitherWorld Book Two Ishpiming

Author: Scott Baker

ISBN: 9781434814586

Publisher:  CreateSpace Publisher

Headline:   An Epic Imagination: Continued

The second volume of Scott Baker’s debut novel, NeitherWorld Book Two Ishpiming, continues the mystery uncovered by the archeological dig team, headed by Dr. Samantha Horner, in northern Minnesota. The team has now been transported to an alien world by Orenda, the ten-year-old Ojibwe child who finds herself with strange powers beyond her maturity to manage.

It is in this second novel that Baker reveals the angst of the aliens who have lost their original homes and now seek to survive through hosts of other species. This includes the animal world as well as the human race and the displaced aliens are both evil and good spirits. In Ishpiming, the bad spirited-aliens, known as the Lupok, take center stage in their quest to find hosts that will enable them to conquer all species and become the most powerful over all others.

With much of the action occurring on the surface of another place in the universe, the reader is treated to imaginative creatures and unique landscapes as the dig team works through its options to return to earth and complete their mission, which has now taken on far more significance than determining the historical value of an ancient shaman, Voice-In-The-Sky.

Baker uses the full range of dreams-to-visions to help the reader understand the strange beings while keeping the action going. This passage provides a good example: “Sam drifted into a dream, imaging herself high in the trees. She was moving as a yoboa yoboa, effortlessly gliding through the trees, as naturally as she had previously walked on the ground.” Later in this passage: “She began to feel like she was intruding, intruding into the body she now occupied, like its true owner was waiting, somewhere in a corner of its own mind.” Through this dream-vision, Sam pickups up the clue to follow for the next step of the dangerous journey. Her visions are more frequent in Ishpiming. They become the roadmap for the dig team to follow in resolving the conflicts stretching across the universes Baker has described as well as for understanding her own relationship to her ancestry.

The author brings this story train safely into the station without any serious derailments but it is also beleaguered by the editing and proofreading misses evident in the first book, Akiiwan. Even with fewer pages to read than the first volume, it still requires a strong interest in fantasy/science fiction to see it through to the conclusion. A parsimonious editing pen would serve this novel well.

Overall, the novel is entertaining and engages the reader’s imagination effectively. Fans of the fantasy/science fiction genres will likely find it worthy of shelf space in their collections.

Click Here To Purchase From Amazon NeitherWorld Book Two Ishpiming

The above review was contributed by: Paula Buermele: Paula is the author of The Dream Catcher Tour and has extensive experience in corporate writing, process documentation, and writing training materials.

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