The other day I logged into my Kindle Cloud to send a document I’d uploaded to my device and noticed that one of the Amazon books had an available update. I have enabled auto-updates, but I’ve long known that, for whatever reason, some books don’t and I have to actually push the button. I’ve never figured out what differentiates the books that auto-update from those that don’t, but such is life.

And because I was then thinking about updating books, and knowing that some had been updated and others hadn’t, I was forced to go through and update all books with available updates. (I’m not OCD or anything like, but some things still nag at me, and a task that is partly done is one of them.) The end result was me traveling back in time through my Kindle Cloud, and somewhere along this journey I decided it would be fun to find and read the oldest unread book in my Kindle Cloud*.

That turned out to be The Destiny of Ethan King, by Martin Cosgrove, which I apparently purchased (or probably picked up as a freebie) in May of 2012.

Going back in time is a little dangerous, because my reading tastes and pet peeves, etc have changed over time and 9 years is a lot of time for growth and change. I had a huge purge last year and deleted a lot of books I knew I’d simply never read. So, it was safe to assume The Destiny of Ethan King wasn’t one of those. But I still entered into it a little warily.

A university professor discovers the notes of a little-known 12th century alchemist detailing the creation of a mystical substance called Universal Matter. This substance is capable of generating unlimited energy and has the power to either end humanity’s greatest problems, or destroy us all. The ancient documents claim that, when the time is right, one human soul will be given the ability to create Universal Matter. His name is Ethan King.

Thrown into a world in which the boundaries between good and evil are blurred, Ethan is left with no choice but to embark on a mystical adventure with potentially global consequences. Complications arise in the form of supernatural abilities, past life flashbacks and personal tragedy.

Ok, I’m gonna be blunt here. I can see what the author was after with this book, but the way it’s written (told, really) bored me to tears. I finished it by force of will alone. I literally read a couple chapters, went off and read a whole other book, came back for a couple more chapters, then read another book, then a few more chapters, and another book, etc. That’s what it took for me to finish. It’s a snooze fest.

The thing is, I really think it’s the writing, not the story itself that’s the problem. Most of the important points, where real character growth or plot progression occurs are told instead of shown (often after the fact). So, you never really feel connected to anything. Further, Cosgrove’s attempts to explain the transcendentalism or whichever metaphysical/esoteric philosophy the characters are utilizing is almost lecture level dull. The fact that the reader needed the lecture to understand shows how poorly it was shown in the writing otherwise.

Perhaps there will be those, new to the ideas presented here perhaps, who will enjoy book. All in all, it’s a failure for me though.

*And this then became me making a concerted effort to read more of the older books that have been buried in my cloud for years.