Rozner's Constant

Rating:
Summary: A good first effort, but...
Review: I heard the author read an excerpt at the book's launch party, and I was hooked. The premise had quite an attention-getter (a dying man sends a coded message even as he sees his death approaching) and I loved the author's word-play.

The author tells his story in such a captivating fashion that, when the six-legged aligators start speaking telepathically with our heroes, I totally bought it. My disbelief was willfully suspended.

However, while the author could make me believe that a gator could talk and quote the Bible and such, he couldn't make me believe that a woman who knows people are out to kill her drinks from a bottle of wine that she finds at her doorstep simply because she thinks she knows who left it there for her. Similarly random behavior from the main characters (the board of directors of a major corporation voting in a new CEO on the basis of one unverified claim by one conflict-of-interest lawyer -- this is the action upon which the entire novel hangs, and I didn't buy it for a second) poke holes that not even a scripture-quoting gator can ignore.

This is an interesting case of good language but not-so-good writing. Jeffrey gets many bonus points for writing a first novel that's readable and even gripping, but loses some points for the believability of his human characters. I like the world he's created and the native inhabitants with which it is peopled. I'd be interested in returning to Rozner's World, should there ever be a sequel, but only if the human tour guides are a little more natural.