Origins

I just finished reading Origins by Randolph Lalonde.  I found it for free for the Kindle App that I have on my ipod and it sounded interesting.  It's a science fiction story, told from the point of view of Captain Jonas Valent, of a crew that is essentially forced into service after they are found participating in military simulations and doing surprisingly well.  He must take his largely untrained crew and defend their home from the corporations that are trying to take over. 

It's self-published, so I was a little wary at first.  It turns out it's the first in a series, thought I didn't realize that when I bought it.  The beginning is a little confusing.  It seems to jump around a lot, but the characters were intriguing so I kept going.  I'm glad I did.  There are a few minor spelling issues, but that's to be expected with self-published works.  I've found errors in books from big publishers.  It's not enough to detract from the story.  After my initial confusion at the beginning, the story got interesting.  It's well-written and the dialog is very realistic.  It has some pretty funny moments in it as well.  The characters seem fairly well-developed as well, especially considering that there's a message from the author at the end that explains that the story basically started out as practice for him with no intention of publishing.

I was a little disappointed with the ending, but it makes sense now that I know there are more stories that involve this crew.  I might have to pick one up just to see what happens to them.