Partially Human
by Dwayne G. Anderson
Published by Infinity Publishing
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Reviewed by Linda Lee
Just a month before Joshua Plofhard’s turns nineteen, his mother tells him the secret she’s been carrying since before his birth. He is carrying alien DNA in his system, and the creatures that put it there will want to harvest it on his next birthday. This was an experiment in saving their own race.
When a mugging gone awry reveals the truth about the aliens to the public, Joshua becomes a target, both for the taunting and hatred of the citizens of Los Angeles, as well as an assassin’s bullet. A self-appointed protector, known only as The Prejudice, has been killing the undesirable weirdoes for decades.
After the mugging, Joshua and his small band of friends and family are denied restaurant service, banking and theater seats. Everyday citizens want to see him destroyed as fear of the unknown drives them to a mob mentality. Joshua needs to meet an alien spacecraft on his birthday. Will he live that long? If he survives the ignorance of his neighbors and the stealth of The Prejudice, can he keep from self destruction brought on by fear and pain?
Add to this the idea he is falling in love for the first time, and you’ll see our guy is in a bit of a predicament.
This is a story full of good guys and bad guys. You want the good guys to get away; you want the bad guys to get educated. Ignorance seems to be the enemy.
This was an over-simplified, elementary telling of how ignorance leads to prejudice. Dialogue is wooden and not true to life. Envision the author having all the parts he felt needed for the story laid out on a table, much like repairing a motor. When it was all done, it didn’t fit the space allotted. Instead of taking it apart and fitting it correctly, he just threw in the extra pieces to fill the void of empty pages.
The book seemed more focusd on word count, as witnessed by the listing of names, order of clothing donned, describing the everyday washing of face and brushing of teeth—than on substance. Misspellings and grammatical errors cause me to falter, interfering with the entertainment value.
While a good story premise, it fell flat in the telling.
Armchair Interviews says: A science fiction geared to young adults.