Review: One Day as a Lion

One Day as a Lion by Jonathan E. Hernandez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had a hard time really deciding what to say about One Day as a Lion and how to rate it, as there are tons of great things about the book, but also a few nagging issues. At the start, I was pretty convinced this was going to end up as a three-star book, but by the end, I’d give it four stars. Averaging it out, it’s a solid three and a half stars, but I think there is a good chance future books in this series will be better. So overall, I’m rounding it up to four stars (since we don’t have a half rating).

The world-building was my favorite part of the novel and it involves a really unique take on human colonization and evolution. The Regime was a different kind of antagonist that I haven’t really seen before and I really found their xenobiology-based technology and distinctive culture fascinating. The level of development and detail put into the Regime is impressive. Talks-To-His-Spear’s POV chapters were great and everything involving the Regime was well done. I’d quickly pick up a novel that focused on the Regime’s POV that explored their culture, politics, and history.

My main critique of One Day as a Lion boils down to the quality of writing, particularly throughout the first half or so of the book. At the beginning of the book, most of the text is heavy on plot-driving dialog and action, but short on the descriptive text to really describe what’s going on and who the characters are. The pacing is odd and the story skips forward without transition text, which makes it hard to figure out how characters moved to a new location or scene. The missing transitions and “travel” scenes also meant less opportunity for character development, so most of the characters end up feeling flat and didn’t grow beyond their cliche military character tropes.

But, from what I understand, this is Hernandez’s first published book and the writing continued to improve as I moved deeper into the story. By the end of the book, I felt like there had been a dramatic improvement. I think the next book will be even better.

Ryan Kennard Burke narrates the audio version and does a good job with the story and unique characters. I don’t have any complaints about Burke’s performance, voices, or accents.

Special thanks to Aethon Books, who provided me this book free of charge at my request.

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