This is an impressive novel and I feel compelled to give you my take on it. I've read this twice now, once about 4 months ago and recently under the rubric of "was that as fun and interesting as I remember it being?" The answer to the latter is a solid yes! 

First off, this is firmly in the genre of sci-fi horror. Secondly, its major theme is about friendships-formed-in-adversity. Thirdly, the characters are broadly but convincingly drawn, with care and humor which ultimately serve the plot in very functional ways. 

It's a shame that the "tagging" system used here isn't able to convey these qualities (thus is my motivation to write this review).

Now let me get the major caveat out of the way. Many readers will bounce off this novel hard early in the first chapter due to its FUBAR setting and extraordinarily coarse rendering of its peculiar, brutal adversity. Stay with it. Get to the end of Chapter 1. By then you should be hooked.

Structurally, The Blue Rose is cinematic. Having spent considerable time as an amateur screenplay writer (two full-length scripts, none commercially relevant), I can immediately see how the strong visuals and potent, funny dialogue propel the story. While this novel will never be made into a movie given its content, I was struck by the economy and urgency of the journey combined with the author's considerable gifts in describing the impossible. 

SIDEBAR: Now this is purely speculative, but if you are interested in what I believe a future AI-enhanced movie making process would look like, The Blue Rose is content to study. Its long, highly detailed visual descriptions feel like they are at the very edge of what can be imagined. I can see a future where that technical-document-called-a-screenplay would externally reference whole blocks of text from an original source. These blocks would then be fed into a visual engine to provide reference art for animators and art directors to then implement in other CG systems. Just a thought.

There are so many technical things to admire about this narrative. One that particularly hit home for me was the careful, yet timely, reveals of the larger story. We progress from a claustrophobia-inducing prison to the broadest perspective on society, religion and our human motivations (many of the darkest nature). And yet there is humor, generosity and love to balance all this horror. 

This is a big story with big payoffs, but only if you read the whole damn thing. Huge props to the author for creating this work and I look forward to reading more from them.

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