Mead Hall Media, $0.99, ISBN 979-8224469703
Sci-fi, 2024

Okay, let me just get straight to the point here: I am giving Chuck Anderson’s Neon Salvation two oogies not because it’s awful. Indeed, I like the premise a lot.

However, I don’t like how this story turns out.

Before I confuse everyone further, let me first give the synopsis. In the distant future, Lou Bloom is a former member of the clergy that has been disgraced because of some untoward incident in his past that led to his falling out with the church. He now leads some androids on some evangelical mission, and forms a bond with one of them, Lenina Crowne.

These two would undergo all kinds of trials and tribulations that will challenge their faith… but really, this story has me giving it the side eye because there is just too much telling.

The whole thing reads like a phone book and the characters come off as flat and forgettable as can be.

This is one big damn shame because the premise itself is rife with potential pathos and drama. After all, the protagonist is a conflicted man of faith that is on a journey to find it again. Yet, because of how the author serves up this story, poor Lou’s story is as remarkable as a mundane trip to the toilet.

Perhaps this one should have been developed into full length novel, or even a trilogy, as the author has enough ingredients here for such an expansion. Alas, all the ingredients are barely used, such as the non-existent development of the theme of faith, and I get such an underdeveloped story as a result.

In the end, I am very disappointed. I had high hopes for this one, because I have a weakness for protagonists that are disillusioned men of faith, but really, the author is killing me here by breaking my heart like this.