Rabid Reader's Reviews

Publication Date: April 8, 2012

In Particle Horizon by Selso Xisto, a Galactic Holy War begins and unfolds into what is called in the Amazon description, a space opera featuring several key players all fighting for their own goals. At the heart of the conflict is a new elemental power that can change the game for everyone.

I have read science fiction before, but I have never read anything like this. Not only is the author of Particle Horizon amazingly creative, but the descriptions are so clear and beautiful that I quickly became completely invested in these characters and what was happening to them. Let me give you an example of the writing style. At the start of the novel, the resistance fighters are preparing for an attack and when that attack happens a young warrior is stuck on a ledge unable to escape….

The Scorpions must have zeroed them…the aluminum railgun slug punched clean through the underside of the ramp, peeling through the thin steel and piercing the young boy’s torso as If he were wet paper. (Kindle location 231).

This is just a taste of the beauty and emotion invested in the language. Call me a softie, but after reading that passage and those that follow in the battle, this reader had tears dripping down her cheeks. Xisto seems to have managed to make us care in those few little pages, so when given a longer period of time to develop a character, that development has the depth to bring the reader into a full investment of the outcome of the storyline and those characters.

Selso Xisto’s writing in incredibly detailed. The author has a talent for description so that no matter how far into the future this sort of reality might be, or how far from normal reading, we can picture the setting exactly. The wonder of this is that the story doesn’t suffer. He comes in, as we’re told in writing class to do, assuming that the reader knows nothing and educates us in a way that’s not patronizing. As a diversion, I found the division of those battling (essentially a cult and UFW — United Free Worlds that had denounced all deities), fascinating and very symbolic. This may not be what Xisto intended, but having grown up in radical Christianity, it was hard for this reader to ignore.

I’ve read a lot of novels — science fiction and other genres, but never one with a storyline such as the one we read in Particle Horizon. The whole concept of a space opera is new to me and I found it refreshing. I find often in mystery, because I read so much of it, that I know exactly where an author is going. This novel and others like American Goddesses by Gary Henry highlight the value of the indie author. There is so much out there these days to choose from and so many hidden gems like Particle Horizon and American Goddesses that, once discovered, will bring their authors great success in the e-book market.

This is the kind of novel that becomes a science fiction classic, and from which cult classic movies are made. In reverse of The Hunger Games (the first movie I saw, but the first book I will never read because though I knew Rue would die and was shaking with emotion in the theater when it happened); this is a movie I will never see because I’ve read the book. The emotion invested in the storyline is shattering in ways for this reader. I cried at the beginning and I cried at the end and I am not usually that reader which speaks to the talent of this author.

Left to my own devices, I may never read this novel and missing it would have been a tragedy. I will read every word that Selso Xisto writes and even if you’re not a science fiction fan, I encourage you to read The Hunger Games because it’s so much bigger than any one genre. This novel is fast and action-packed from beginning to end.

Read an excerpt and buy Particle Horizon by Selso Xisto on

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