Mercury Falls feels like the early work of a writer who is going to go on to write some amazingly witty and engaging novels, even if this first effort doesn’t set the sky on fire. While it isn’t quite at their level, it’s certainly well worth your time if you’re looking for something in a Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett vein. In fact, you can draw a lot of parallels with the “Hitchhiker’s Guide.” There’s a clueless but game protagonist. A rather more hip and with-it outsider who has been on earth for sometime and has a bit of an affinity for it. Then there is the occasional log entry, not to mention one or two explicit call-outs to the Guide itself. Mercury Falls a nicely conceived and light-hearted story about the apocalypse, but it lacks momentum until the very end and the characterizations are rather flat. It’s not as funny as Pratchett or Adams, but that’s probably setting an unfair bar for Kroese to hurtle over. Ultimately, it’s a fun story with good ideas, and I’ll be one of the first in line for his next book. You could do much worse than this entertaining romp.
Amazon Link – Mercury Falls
The Theopolis 