Unidentified by Douglas E. Richards

Unidentified Reviews

• 
  Douglas Richards

  After what seems like an eternity--at least to me 🙂 -- my new novel, UNIDENTIFIED, is finally out! It is now available as an eBook (enrolled in Kindle Unlimited), and a paperback, and I'll let you know when the audiobook is available. This one is a science-fiction thriller detailing the compelling evidence that UFOs are here, while offering a mind-blowing fictional take on the reasons why.
  
  As always, if you read this one and enjoy it, I'd be grateful for your help spreading the word. Also, if you get a moment, please consider writing a few sentences in a Goodreads review box so other readers will know what's in store for them.
  
  Thanks! Happy reading.
  
  Doug
  Douglas E. Richards
• 
  Jefrois

  MY OPINION:
  
  
  Jayzus, this book stinks.
  
  Written on the back of a McDonald’s napkin with blue and red crayons, at stoplights?
  
  I wish I could give this EVEN LESS than one star. I give it a “minus 100,000 stars.”
  
  Written by an 11 year old for a 10 year old?
  
  I dunno….
  
  Does a lot of writer stuff that is highly annoying.
  
  Like, “Let that sink in….” Wow! That is VAGUE!!!
  
  The author makes a YUGE deal about how much he researches weapons and security personnel but gets it all wrong: he knows CRAP about CRAP.
  
  And his “protag” is so modern that he weeps 😭 tears and whines and is quite the Millennial hero.
  
  “‘Yes!’ I screeched….”
  
  “…A giddy grin erupted across my face.…”
  
  “…I rose from the chair, noticing that my left thigh had been dressed and bandaged. I kept my weight on my right leg and sat beside Tessa, kissing her with great passion, so ecstatic that she was alive that I almost whimpered in ecstasy.”
  
  Oh, and a woman is the smartest, toughest, bestest shot, and bestest at everything there is in the galaxy, and the bestest thing to be is a woman, I guess.
  
  “…She probably would have prevailed over scores of elite commandos, and even more drones….”
  
  “…She’s a remarkable warrior,” said the colonel. “Remarkable. She killed six of my men. And even after she fell and was nearly fatally wounded, it took three more to finally bring her down.” He paused. “She’s as good as anyone I’ve ever seen….”
  
  …She sighed. “Not really. I despise having to kill. It’s a horrible thing to have to live with, even if I had no choice. But I’ll shake it off. Now isn’t the time.”
  
  “I understood. The carnage I had just witnessed was likely to leave permanent scars on my psyche, and was hard to get out of my head. And I hadn’t killed anyone.
  
  “I had long wondered if Tessa had ever been forced to take lives, but I had never brought it up. She had served with the Deltas, after all, a special forces branch famous for its counter-terrorism and hostage rescue operations, so it wouldn’t be crazy to imagine that she had.”
  
  “I shook my head in awe. She had taken out Chen and six of China’s elite special forces single-handedly, and was only captured because of bad luck. If I hadn’t believed in her skills before, I sure did now.
  
  This book STINKS
  
  (How I wish I were a woman!!
  
  I wish all my children and grandchildren were women!)
  
  By Page 167, this “book” had become too much bllsht to bear, and I quit reading, no longer caring about it, or what might happen next.
  
  What bllsht.
  
  After this apparent piglet-abortion, I am swearing off the genre.
  .
  
  .
• 
  Adrian Durlester

  I've delayed writing this review because I feel really guilty writing it. I guess it's time to rip off the Band-aid. Douglas E. Richards is a talented author. His first two popular books, "Wired" and "Amped" were truly excellent, and remain among the best books he has written. Therein, however, hangs a tail. Many of his subsequent books were also great reads. However, more recently, I've found them just not up to the level of his promising early works. I'll be quite clear here—I intend to continue reading books by Douglas E. Richards because the talent he first hooked me with is, I am sure, still there. Hidden, perhaps, under the pressure of success, deadlines, etc.
  
  "Unidentified," like all of Richards' works, draws on recent or interesting scientific developments and speculation along with topically relevant circumstances. They tend to be timely and engaging. He is fussy about the science, and devotes a great deal of time and effort to getting it right, and keeping the speculative elements within a reasonable frame of possibility. While he is often raising ethical issues raised by newer technology, he always works to present a balanced perspective. It's not the technology per se that is evil, but how it can be used by unscrupulous people. "Unidentified" carries on in this vein, in every respect.
  
  Where "Unidentified" falls short for me is in several key areas. The first is an area that I have mentioned in a number of my reviews of some of his earlier books. He has a propensity to fill his books with "infodumps." Paragraph upon paragraph with little to no action, and serving only to advance the plot through explanations of circumstances, technologies. It's not a failing unique to Mr. Richards, and remains far to common in all but the very best science fiction and speculative fiction. The issue with "Unidentified" is that it has "jumped the shark" in percentage of the book that amounts to "infodump." It's almost a vast majority. It's like one long "infodump" with a little bit of action in-between to break up the monotony.
  
  The second shortcoming is related to the overall perspective of the book. While Mr. Richards is a very talented author, he is not yet worthy of being hailed among the giants of the genre—Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Dick, Herbert, LeGuin, Bradbury, Pohl, Niven, Bear, Butler, Gibson, and so many more. He's good, but he's not quite up there with the newer generation of giants like Martine, Weir, Jemison, Liu, Leckie, et al. Then again, that's not his target market, the literary SciFi world. All this is meant to say that it is a bit presumptuous of Richards to go meta and be self-referential, even indirectly (or purposefully just different enough,) to his own self, writing, and works. I found this very off-putting, and it feels like he worked a bit too hard at getting it in, yet believing is was subtle enough to pass.
  
  The third shortcoming is one that has been causing a bit of a slow burn in me as I have read through his catalogue since I first discovered him (around the time he published "Wired.") It's the constant reliance on individual (or two-character) resilience and winning against all odds. Also, in almost every case, there is a male-female relationship amongst the primary antagonists that is just plain similar to Heinlein-juvenile-style misogyny. Yes, his female characters do have a little more agency, but it still feels really dated given the 21st-century realities we live in. In some ways, the entire book of "Unidentified" may exist to serve as justification for having characters that are simply too successful to be believable by laying the source in the hand of alien species. The whitewash just doesn't work for me. It's time for some truly "woke" characters, and not "woke" in some sort of stereotypical, overblown caricature of what that really means. I can just hear Richards saying now "but that's just exactly what I did in this book and others." If he really believes that is true, then I'm worried that his worldview is a bit tainted.
  
  There are a few other nitpicky items that bothered me, in particular a Star Trek reference to an alien species as a comparison to circumstances in the book that is so far off the mark of what that species truly is like, that I wonder why it's even there, and makes it feel even more gratuitous because it's so, well, just wrong.
  
  As I always do, I read this book to the end. I didn't skip. I took my time reading it. I even went back and re-read some parts when I was unclear about something. I allowed myself time to savour it, to sit with it and reflect on it. After doing so, I have come to the conclusion that my general gut reaction while reading it were on the mark.
  
  Douglas, I am sure you have many readers who will be quite happy with "Unidentified" so there's no reason to worry about the impact of my review. But it's an honest review, and, as I value your work as a writer, I hope you'll value, at least to some degree, the thoughtful comments I've written here. Still looking forward to your next book.
• 
  Barb

  I’ve enjoyed other books by this author so with the high rating on this one I had high hopes. It didn’t take long for disappointment to set in. The love story was cringey. Long info dumps were interspersed with impossible captures and rescues.
  
  Here’s the story about us aliens.
  They lied!
  OK, we lied, here’s the REAL story.
  That’s a lie, here’s the real story.
  No, that’s a lie, but our original story was actually true!
  Ugh! I don’t even care anymore.
• 
  Daniel Kincaid

  About a year and a half ago, I read my first novel by Douglas E. Richards, "The Enigma Cube", and I was hooked. Since Then I read almost all his novels, and I was impressed not only by his sheer talent of weaving fascinating sci-fi stories based on science, by also by his exploration of human nature and the human condition, and putting our natures to the test dealing with new, thought-provoking technologies and situations.
  
  "Unidentified" is all those things, and then some, as Richards kicks up a notch his talents and weaves ever so perfectly and beautifully a story that is thought-provoking, exciting, different, daring, entertaining and forces us to look deep into ourselves and what we're all made of, as a species and as individuals.
  
  "Unidentified" is so much than just another UFO tale. Much, much more. Richards uses this old-as-time-tale and refreshes it completely, and succeeds in doing so, while diving deep exploring humanity and our place in the grand scheme of things. Filled with engaging, lifefull, three-dimensional characters, fascinating discussions and insights, superbly written action scenes, and a story filled with twists and turns you won't see coming no matter how hard you try, "Unidentified" is Douglas E. Richards at his best, promising, and delivering in spades, hours of entertainment and food for thought.
  
  5 stats, though it's deserve much more. If you like a sci-fi story that is different and that will challenge you as well as entertain, than this novel is is just for you. Also, recommended to Douglas' fans and new-comers as well. This novel won't disappoint.
  And hopefully, maybe there'll even be a sequel as well.
• 
  Maria Trying to write my book Park

  Complex and Fascinating Technothriller
  
  Unidentified is another fabulous technothriller from Douglas Richards. I tried for weeks to pare down my feedback about this book and finally gave up.
  
  What I love the most about Richard's writing is that he richly researches every topic, uses cutting edge concepts across quantum physics, technology, artificial intelligence and so much more, and then stretches into speculative fiction.
  
  The reader never knows until the appendix just what is really possible, this allowing your imagination to be free to follow the story anywhere it goes.
  
  Trust me, Unidentified is a must read for anyone who wants to explore the Universe and the possibilities out there waiting for us. Highly recommended.
• 
  Dan

  An enjoyable read.
• 
  Dave Strohmeier

  Again another outstanding book from this author i love reading his books this one as the others are awesome reads i found this book was especially a very good read it kept me reading from cover to cover without stopping a lot of thought provoking ideas in this book I highly recommend this book
• 
  Jammee

  This book had me on the edge of my seat, couldn’t put it down, had to know what came next. So many twists & turns! Was never sure what was real.
• 
  J

  This book felt like it's 80% characters spending chapter after chapter explaining stuff. What happened to "show, don't tell"? Our hero gets captured, listens to what feels like hours of explanation of what's going on, then gets captured by "the other side" and gets to listen for hours about how everything he just learned is actually the opposite of what he thought. Rinse and repeat. Oh – and don't forget THE POWER OF LOVE (I shit you not!).
  
  Also: "I kissed her exquisite lips". Are we 12?
  
  Even the worst authors published by major publishers are better than this. This book has done the impossible and made me long for Dan Brown!
• 
  Jen

  I love Dan Bittner's narration and the story isn't terrible - it just isn't holding my interest. I'm having to suspend my belief too much, so I'm leaving this one at 48%.
• 
  Tina Hsu

  Aliens. Action. Suspense. Twists. I've said enough (don't want to spoil things). This was a super fast read, with action sections interspersed with science/exposition sections. A couple of times this format dragged, but for the most part it was fun and compelling.
• 
  Deborah Zaranti

  Science fiction with a dose of science fact
  
  Love the authors style of writing. His books are always very engaging, never boring. What really caught my attention in this particular book were the two links to Google articles related to actual patents for some very advanced tech I never dreamed existed! Check it out!
• 
  Michael Wertz

  Now! It can be told- flying saucers are real! Except, it was all a dream or, er, dreams, where characters swap motivation like a ball and cups scam. The nerd of all nerds our protagonist, humble-brags his way ("after all everyone has always told me I'm special") through 400 some pages while capturing the complete love of THE MOST PERFECT WOMAN IN THE WORLD by about page 5. Although goof-proofed: AIs, aliens, and ideas continuously get goofed, nothing stops our nanite-enhanced Clark Kent from, well basically, from doing anything he wants. The big reveal- spoiler alerts-be-damned: The entire galaxy is in jeopardy from the Borg...I mean "Swarm" who appears to be Santa Clause but is actually The Wizard of Oz who is both bored and nasty. Have yourself a drink or three as you slog through this it's-all-about-me, plagiarized* cliche ride. There's no place like home.
  
  *see: Arthur C Clark's- Childhood's End