Editor’s note: Exponent is the sequel to Extant, which I previously reviewed. Spoilers ahead for Extant.
Cover blurb
Suspense is a killer. But what about everybody else?
Dr. Ina Adama has big problems. Another time traveler is demanding that she help him kill every last living dinosaur or risk dooming humanity to non-existence. But can he be trusted? And is there someone else on the planet with an agenda all of their own?
My thoughts
Exponent is the second in a planned self-published trilogy of novellas, all telling a single, larger story. I enjoyed the first novella, Extant, which stood out from a lot of other self-published dinosaur fiction in that it wasn’t another horror novel, but a sci-fi adventure. Unfortunately, Croxall stumbles in Exponent, and at its end, the author makes an announcement about the third novella in the series that instantly turned me off.
To recap, Ina Adama is an ecologist sent back in time to study the K-Pg extinction in the hope that what she learns can reverse the ecological collapse of her own era. While in the past she encounters another time traveler, Major Callum Everett, who has come to the Cretaceous with several fusion bombs. Everett tells Adama that he is from her future, and that her mission ends with her time machine traveling back without her. Worse still, the data in the machine shows the asteroid impact wasn’t large enough to cause a mass extinction. His mission is to plant bombs at various locations on Earth and set them off at the time of the impact so the mass extinction happens on schedule, ensuring that humanity will evolve. Adama agrees to help Everett, but after a close encounter with two tyrannosaurs, she finds mysterious writing on a canyon wall telling her the major cannot be trusted.
Exponent opens after the cliffhanger ending of Extant with Adana giving a brief recap of the first novella’s events. The story is once again told through Adana’s audio logs and transcribed recordings of her conversations with Everett. Sadly, none of the mysteries raised in the first work are resolved or even advanced in any way. Adana has suspicions about Everett’s motives, but she continues to aid him in his quest to plant huge bombs across the globe while never learning more about what he’s really up to. Readers get more of Adana’s observations of the Cretaceous wildlife – which remains a highlight of the series – and we get a deep dive into a Pokémon-like game she plays, but there is no forward momentum of the plot.
What readers get instead is a couple of lengthy interludes set either in the modern day or the near future. Both involve a killer who I assume will play a larger role in the third and final novella, but, for now, the interludes seemingly belong in a different work of fiction. The second interlude in particular was very odd, about a college student who wakes up to find the bodies of his five ex-girlfriends in his room. Their killer then blackmails the student into doing a series of embarrassing tasks that he could avoid at any time if he just went to the police rather than stupidly playing along. The story makes little sense, and what’s worse is that both interludes are presented in the same audio log format as the rest of the novel, which breaks the immersion since these situations were not ones that would have been recorded.
Exponent’s biggest sin is at the very end, when the author announces that the third and final novella will be “an interactive LitRPG” in which readers will make the decisions on behalf of the main character. In other words, a Choose Your Own Adventure. It is such a bizarre narrative choice that was in no way telegraphed or advertised ahead of time. Imagine watching a movie when suddenly, at the beginning of the third act, you are handed a game controller and told it is now a video game. Granted, that switch can be fun if you are told about it before diving in, but not after you have invested time and money in a story expecting it to have a proper ending.
At the time of this review, there was no publication date for the third novella in the series, Exposure. I will probably get it since Croxall only charges a few bucks for each story, but I won’t be looking forward to it in the same way I had Exponent after reading the first novella.
Trivia
- Croxall has a Substack newsletter.
- In both works, Croxall refers to the impact as the CI asteroid stick. I assume “CI” refers to the type of asteroid, but it is a weird choice as I’ve never seen any popular writing refer to it in that way.
Reviews
- None
Prehistoric Pulp 