Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
Last time we had more speculation than answers. Two aliens who can take on various forms came to Earth, one secretly chasing the other. It’s time to see if any of our questions are going to be answered this week.
Chapter 2: The Main Essentials
We learned two things: that Crede isn’t naked, and that it wasn’t Hoylt that followed him, but some guy named Hal…unless Hal is Hoylt’s nickname or something. Hal decided to follow his friend, so at least Crede has someone to talk to until he makes friends. And that’s not going to be easy because Earth customs are unsurprisingly new to Crede, from hand shaking to money. Unfortunately it means Crede has to pull a Jedi mind trick on people, but at least he feels bad about it and does get a job at a local restaurant so he can stop doing it. He also takes on the last name Wells because someone said “oh well” to him. I’ve heard dumber ways to come up with a name by aliens and amnesiacs so I’ll take it.
We also learn something interesting about Crede’s shifting power, that soda (or perhaps drinking altogether…but Hal blames the soda) can mess with his stability, possibly due to gas. Again, that’s speculation, but this is something that could come up again as a plot device later. Or Broderick hates soda, who knows? We also get a glimpse into Hal’s personality, that he can be a jerk at times but Crede sees more to him than that. We still don’t know what Crede looks like, whether or not the clothes are part of him or if he can create them separately, and we know more about Hal’s personality (little that it is) than we do Crede’s. But we are only on the second chapter so hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
One thing that caught my attention are the typos and punctuation errors. I suppose the former could be Crede and Hal using the wrong English word but it comes off as typos to me. And I’ve certainly had my fair share of typos on this site. It seems like an editor could have caught them easily, but I don’t know if she self-published or went through a publisher that used an editor. I know I could use an editor now and then, especially in some of my earlier articles or when time is against me. Spell and grammar check only do so much.
Thus far though I’m still interested in the story but I really want to learn more soon about who these two are, who this Hoylt is, and what an omega capsule is. Here’s hoping the next chapter answers some of these questions. As interesting as it is to see Crede and Hal get used to Earth customs, the only mutual frame of reference we have is that they follow time differently and that night and day are something they didn’t pay attention to until now. I seek answers.
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