Book Review: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Castaways

Book: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Castaways by David McDonald

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available Now in the digital edition    Print Edition: will be available on August 30, 2016

Description:

Guardians of the Galaxy: Castaways is the thrilling new adventure featuring Marvel's swashbuckling heroes Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, and the ever-charming Star-Lord himself, Peter Quill.

After a series of missions -- some successful, others less so, and most nearly getting everyone killed -- the Guardians of the Galaxy are at a breaking point when they crash-land on a strange planet. With no way to repair their ship, the frustrated Guardians go their separate ways, quickly discovering that the planet's inhabitants have never progressed past a medieval stage of development. Quill finds himself a favored member of a powerful duke's court (as well as a favorite of the duke's daughter), and life seems just fine under the circumstances . . . until the duchy comes under attack. When Quill reckons that their foe may be what's keeping the planet's civilization from advancing, he realizes that defeating it-with the Guardians' help-may be their only hope for getting off of that world. . . . . . . If he can find his friends in time.



Rating: 2 stars (Did Not Finish)

Review:

I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, I finally found a book that wasn't a good read. This was a Did Not Finish for me.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Castaways reads like generic sci-fi but that's not to say it's bad. The writing is actually pretty good, it's the story that's the problem. It's boring, there wasn't anything fun or interesting that moved the story along or held my interest. I felt like you could have omitted the Guardian characters and replaced them with random characters and it would not have made a difference in how this was being told. Also, at times the characters seemed a little out of character but I did enjoy how Gamora was written in this. And thankfully not as she was shown in the movie (she was way too wimpy in the movie).

The story follows the group as they crash land on a distant planet that's hundreds of light years away from any known star systems. And thanks to a random EMP missile that hit their already damaged ship they were now stranded on the planet. Add to that, the team has been on edge thanks to too much time spent together as well as Quill botched up a mission that cost them a good deal of money.

Now that they were stuck on this planet they as predictable went there separate ways. It was supposed to be temporary, however, it didn't read as such. Because the story then jumped three months later finding Peter in a some what cushy job as the protector of a Duke. It wasn't until a mysterious force was making it's way through the land killing people and destroying everything in it's wake that Quill made an attempt to get the group back together so they could try to help. He found Rocket and Groot living in the woods acting as its protectors while Gamora had been at a monastery helping to teach and train young women. I bowed out of the story before I could find out where Drax had been.

I really wish this story had been more interesting, because I was left feeling nothing for both the story and the characters. However, I love the cover, that artwork is amazing.