A sci-fi thriller and the second in a series of novels by Antony Botting. An artefact known as the Pebble is found. When the Trauma begins, no-one is prepared. Terror descends, as life on Earth changes in an instant. The effects are felt worldwide as survivors face the greatest danger. Strange beings walk the surface of the planet as science, religion and criminal enterprise struggle to comprehend the offensive. Humanity seeks sanctuary, unable to come to terms with the Trauma.
So are there any, you know, characters in this novel?
I mean, obviously the two main characters are Pebble and Trauma.
Eh, the summary sounds like it’s for the prologue to the story rather than the story proper. A fair number of “event” stories (as Orson Scott Card refers to them) start this way, with the narrative initially focusing on whatever disastrous event disrupts and/or destroys the present social order. A story that stays focused on such impersonal things as these events and the economies, governments, religious hierarchies, etc. these catastrophes are destroying isn’t much of a story, however.
So yeah, when does this story actually start? That is, when are we actually going to be introduced to one or more of the individuals this event impacts so we can—y’know—have some actual reason to care about what happens? Speaking of Orson Scott Card, this sounds exactly like that one story he mentions one of the students in his creative writing course submitting to him that spent pages and pages describing the setting and situation before getting to the part where it should have begun: “That’s when little Albie decided he’d had enough!”
In fact, this piece makes me think of that one Bloodlines submission we got on Cover Critics about a year-and-a-half ago, the difference being that the submitter there wrote about the characters and setting but neglected to tell us about the plot, whereas this author has written about the plot and the setting but neglected to tell us about any of the characters. Where my question to the author there was “All right, but what do these people actually do?” my question here would be “All right, but who are any of these humans you say are seeking sanctuary from this catastrophe?”
Of course, knowing how these things often work out for us over at Cover Critics, this summary might actually be completely accurate—as in, this “story” never does get around to introducing us to any individual characters. If anybody ever dropped a “story” like that on us, about the only response I could give would be “Dude, just give up now and cancel the series now. Nobody wants to read a ‘thriller’ about a clash between purely impersonal combatants like human collectives and natural forces.”
It’s probably like Rebel Moon, no characters to speak of.