17 Aug 2017

Review: The Chronicles of Henry Harper


'' My name is Henry Harper and I am nobody important. ''

 ★★★★☆

We all know those main characters who state in the beginning of their story that they are not important. That no matter how many princes and princesses they have rescued and worlds saved, they still think so little of themselves. Henry Harper is exactly the epitome of those. Despite travelling through space to the unknown and achieving the impossible again and again.

The book contains exactly what it says on the cover, The Chronicles of Henry Harper. He accounts his own life story in a series of short stories told in third-person narrative. There is his own commentary before and after each story in first-person.
I've been rescheduling this book for ages, and now decided to read it. Made the right decision, this was just what I needed. The book is funny and clever. It's so blown out of proportion that it still feels like it could be true. The technobabble and all other dialogue in the book just flows. I don't know why I waited so long. But that's the thing, right? We have no way of knowing if the book we keep postponing will be the next big thing.

Character wise this book is very colourful. It starts with just humans aboard and then suddenly, as the years pass, there are races we couldn't even imagine. And planets and worlds, and most importantly, technology. Henry being an engineer has given him the opportunity of never being in-between jobs, since there always is something that needs to be fixed, be it a space station on the verge of blowing up or a space shuttle with assassins on board.

Like I said earlier this book so out proportion that it feels real. I wouldn't wonder if in the future there would be an engineer writing his own life story. An engineer that could've made anything and everything possible.

Really, even if you are not a sci-fi fan, this book will blow your mind. And the best thing, engineering is probably the last subject I would ever study, I still understood the things they were talking about. So no worries there. And even if you don't get some of the things, it's technobabble, just nod and move on.

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