Book Review: The Sky Drifter by Paris Singer

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Title: The Sky Drifter
Author: Paris Singer
Publisher: Booktrope Editions
Publication Date: August 25, 2015
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult

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The Sky Drifter
Paris Singer
Booktrope Editions, August 2015
ISBN 978-1-5137-0085-4
Trade Paperback

From the publisher—

Wandering in the vastness of space, is the Sky Drifter; an academy reserved for the best students in the known universe. Seven is just such a student. Gifted in strategy and Sphere, he lives happily on-board with his friends Iris and Pi, taking on his rival, visiting planets for exploration and competition. Everything is the way he likes it, until he sees a mysterious girl in a red coat, who will reveal to him a secret that will bring everything he thought he knew crashing down around him.

Sometimes, just one little thing can make a book stand out among its fellow books and, in this case, that one little thing would have been a cast of characters or even a cast of races. Almost immediately, I was struck by the vividness of Mr. Singer’s description of the different alien species present in Seven’s school but there were so many that a cast would have been immeasurably helpful.

Mr. Singer’s descriptions of the various characters but also the space cruiser and its configuration really bring the story to life and I found myself totally engaged from the very first pages. The actual characterizations and the plot development were just as strong and I quite simply could not stop once I started reading. There is a lot in this tale that I did not see coming.

There’s very little I can say about the story without spoiling the very things I would hope other readers will enjoy as much as I did so I’ll leave it at this—the secret, the twist if you will, is just about as creative as any I’ve ever come across and my mind was hopscotching all over the place as Seven’s life was completely upended. I do have to say that the author’s turn of phrase frequently gets a bit florid and over-excited but The Sky Drifter may well be one of the few books I’ll ever be driven to re-read while I wait hopefully for a sequel.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, February 2016.

About the Author

Paris Singer was born in Brussels, Belgium. He has lived in the U.K. and in various places in Spain, where he currently resides. At university, he studied English law and Spanish law. He didn’t like it. He then studied translation and didn’t like it, either. Currently, he is an English teacher in the south of Spain. He has far too many interests, he’s told, a few of which being sports, playing his old guitar, learning Japanese, painting, reading and cooking. Not a day goes by, however, where he doesn’t write something, be it under a palm tree or on a bench at a bus stop somewhere.