I got this book as a free sample from the iBookstore. It is a dystopian novel set in the near future. It has all the stock features of a dystopia: class-based oppression, political in-fighting, a rag tag band of fighters trying to over through the regime, some vague sense that a super disease has destroyed the global world order, and alien technology.
It is OK if you are looking for a distracting summer read. The plot moves along at a good pace. The writing is clear. The characters are serviceable. There are no jarring holes in the story. The level of gore is on the high side, but still safely PG. It unfolds in a pleasantly predictable manner.
The problems with the book are manifold, but none of them raise to level of being egregious. There seems to be too many characters with a lot of backstory that never really serve to move the story forward. The author does not seem to have a good grasp on showing characters maturing or having complex, yet subtle, relationships. The ending is also problematic for such a long book.
All of the problems point to the fact that Haven was conceived as a much longer work. The author, while ambitious, didn't proved skilled enough to whittle out a solid standalone story as his first outing. I know there has to be a follow up book, but I don't feel like wading through another 500-600 pages of OK writing to reach the end.
