The biggest highlight of a book for me is the fact that there is always more to explore. I love to invest myself in a good series because that way, I can get invested in the characters and build a bond with their arch which comes to a satisfying conclusion. The fact that the Omni Legends has become a big series gives me hope. The Commander by Kevin Groh is the first book of the series.
For enthusiastic readers out there, the book starts with a lot of unexplored worlds and aliens and planets, which can be explored in future books. To me, this is where I choose to become entangled with the storyline and the characters because I know I am not going to be left dissatisfied by the end of this book, and there is always more coming.
But that is only the beginning, and the more I got into the book, the more I started to understand that this was not going to be another young adult dystopian fantasy fiction. For one, the complex military maneuvers and linguistics make it a delight to read because it is not amateurish or fantastical for me.
I have picked through quite a lot of dystopian fiction hoping to get the same level of thrill and animosity as Hunger Games, and everything came across as quite childish that were written towards literal teenagers instead of creating a world where even adults can get truly invested. The world of Utopia Beta is one such world. It has been crafted with care. The societal division comes off from an affluent society, which slowly takes it down to the bones due to excess. The excess of people and access to life strengthening resources. It reminds us that whereas the world is huge, our reach is still limited, and the planet will eventually restore balance.
It is fantastical to think of what could happen a couple of hundred years in the future, and I am happy to say that The Commander comes across as a book that gets a lot of these factors right. It does not immediately go off into a huge world-ending scenario, which becomes very difficult to accept; instead, it focuses on building up the protagonist from the ground up, so we slowly follow his journey into the world as he keeps exploring a little bit more every day.
Through Carter’s journey, we come across the conflict in the world. We come across the corrupt and nasty government holding trained soldiers to keep everyone in check. We come across the conflict between clans and brothers alike. It is a world that takes off it’s weak and modifies them into a soldier for tomorrow, which is not only terrifying but entirely plausible where we are today. And this is the essence of the book in a nutshell, which has enthralled me into a long and satisfying read. I recommend every dystopian fiction lover to check this out at least once. Make sure to order your copy on Amazon now.
