Binary: A Review

After discovering this awesome website from Eon's Books Read tab a couple of months ago, I have been chipper. I always had something to look forward to while my other phone is not so teemed with text messages or calls.

With a double-digit range of genre, I picked out Science Fiction. The pull came out of my boredom of romance and homophillic potions. The first e-book that I downloaded is entitled Binary by Jay Caselberg.

If you have a portable e-book reader, like a smartphone or Kindle, I suggest that you try downloading all the formats first to personally know the difference in character print and paging: which one works best and which one screws on the device. On my iPhone, the format .epub works best in the application called Stanza.

Binary is all about the effects of natural disasters to the human behavior and politics of a nation. The setting brings us to an unfamiliar planet, somewhere in the outer space where two suns rise at the same time and the seasons are governed by the intensity of each sun's brightness. In a sort of prologue, the setting starts at Clear Season, where the Major Twin is brighter than the Lesser Twin.

Of all the major characters, I liked Sandon Yl Aris the best. He was a victim of the bitter situation of having been banished from the camp of Principal Leannis Men Darnak, the man he served for almost all his life. Principal Men Darnak was not in a good state of mind when he sent out Yl Aris, his very loyal secretary and confidante. Working out his way back to the Principal's camp, he became a spy of all sorts to gather more information on the political instability that have been going on in the Guilds, proving his loyalty to the half-sane Principal.

We are confronted by the effects of religion and superstitious beliefs in this novel. The belief is, the Lesser Twin's dominance, the Storm Season, is a curse to humankind. People born on the Storm Season are stereotyped to suffer with cataclysm in the inner self. For this reason, the Principal's son, Tarlain, had become the most unpopular Men Darnak in their country. He too, was banished, after the Principal learned that he was doing something which sounded like a threat to the security of the Guilds. Tarlain used the Kallathik mines as a refuge after his father expelled and disinherited him at a wrong time --  the Return -- which is the start of the rude Storm Season.

Storm Season is indeed, a very nasty threat to life and security. Earthquakes of great intensity, biting cold, fog coupled rain -- these are a few of its tolls. It is a hindrance to good communication, and it is a test to the human spirit.

Several villains had the plan of ousting the current Principal and gaining control on the nation. With control, the natural resources are at stake.

The plot, the flow and the twist, all are hooking. Catharsis, however, received a little attention, for the author might have seen a little need for it. The supervening neglect of humans to nature is, to me, the major concern. 

I was reminded of a book I wrote several years ago (April of 2007) which is eerily similar to the twist in this book. Too bad, after reading this I thought of not giving my book an end. I was stuck at chapter seven. I know, when I have found myself a better interpretation. Binary is all it could have ever been.