Zero Anaphora by Luke Brimblecombe

A Literary Drama/Speculative Fiction Novel published through Amazon Digital Services (10/17/14)

Summary:

 Professional escort turned financial domination expert, Anna has a secret so different, no-one but Stephen can understand. This secret allows Anna to get the personal thoughts and feelings from those around her in an underhanded way so that she can wreak her havoc and mischief on the world. She is a drinker and a smoker and can dress to kill, bringing all sorts of men into her inner circle where they can’t help but get caught up in her magic.

Keywords:

 Philosophy, Poetry, Descriptive, Escorts, Findom, Power, Domination, Gender Fluidity, Questions

My Review:

“She’s a bit of a mystery to me, that Anna. Never really met anyone quite like her. She seems to be motivated in quite unusual ways. Oh well, everyone’s different.” (Kindle Locations 2741-2742).

Anna begins the novel and Anna ends the novel, but she is not the half of it. The novel focuses heavily on the characters and their present actions and lies and manipulations. Anna is the spotlight because she is the one with the secret. Wendy is the first and the great in findom (financial domination). Lola is the copycat wannabe. Dan is the near hapless client. Dom is the man from afar. James is the relentless outsider trying to squeeze his way into the action. This cast of characters proves a perfect blend of uniqueness, while at the same time the author continuously points out and exploits their similarities. The characters start and end in the book, there is very little background or upbringing or childhood description given. They are who they are and they do what they do. At times more motivation backed by background would have been handy to get a more clear understanding of the characters; however, they are fascinating in their own right.

This book is cemented in the philosophical. Much of the narration focuses on societal tie ins, even telling an unrelated story near the end to get a point across. In my opinion, I thought these philosophical musings made the novel seem dry and almost like a fictionalized textbook. I became tired of every chapter opening with several paragraphs of the author arguing with an unseen character. It got to be too much and made the book longer than it needed to be. The philosophy also took away from the action and didn’t move the plot along, just added to the depth of understanding the reader might take away from this type of book if that is what he/she was looking for.

Much of the action is also sifted through the narrative and philosophical perspective of the author, happening neither in the present nor in the past, but in the interpretation of a scene by this narrator. The writing style was at times ripe with beautiful turns of phrase and wordings that were sometimes distracting to the narrative, but fit in with the philosophical pontifications.

“The Art Museum garden was identical to every picture ever taken of it – an image of the utopian free world, idyllic and tranquil. Free entry, fifteen bucks for parking. Humming birds hovering by the honeysuckle hanging like hilarious, holographic harriers.” (Kindle Locations 4995-4997).

It is always difficult to assess a book that doesn’t follow the popular story arc of beginning, middle, and end with a climax and resolution such as Zero Anaphora. The climax was almost unrelated to the main story, if one could be pinned down as the main story, and the same questions that were posed before remain unanswered. This ties in with much of the content not being related to the story, but with the premise and theme of the book: the philosophy. I won’t spoil the philosophical conclusion here, you will just have to read the book to find out.

This novel was published through Amazon Digital Services October 17th, 2014 and is available on Amazon here.

TLDR Star Rating: 3.50

Links for more information:

Goodreads

Facebook