Review: Nabukko by K.R. Gadeken

Nabukko (The Nabukko Trilogy, #1)

by K.R. Gadeken

Release Date: June 2, 2024

2024 K.R. Gadeken

Ebook Edition; 430 Pages

ISBN: 979-8990421301

ASIN: B0CZ68D35Q

Genre: Fiction / Science-Fiction

Source: Review copy from author

 

4 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

Eff wakes up on a strange planet, with no memories of her past or how she got there. After months of solitary exploration, a chance encounter with a group of colonists changes everything, catapulting Eff into far more mysteries, secrets, and bizarre circumstances than she could have ever bargained for.

Can she trust these colonists? Why does she get the feeling they are hiding something? And how is she tied to their mysterious circumstances?

As tensions rise and allegiances shift, Eff must navigate the challenges of the planet, the colony, and her own fractured memories if she hopes to uncover the truth.

 

 

My Thoughts

Nabukko is the first book in an intended trilogy, and I found this to be really intriguing. I really enjoy science-fiction books that are more mystery-related rather than military (although I love those too!), and I especially love it when we have an unreliable narrator.  Eff doesn't have memories of what happened three months prior and when she learns the other colonists are suffering from a similar fate, albeit not quite as severe as she, she undertakes to discover what is happening to her and to the others.  There was a lot of mystery surrounding Nabukko and I love how the author doesn't just tell you everything, but you have to figure things out for yourself, like peeling away the layers of an onion.

 

First of all, it took me quite a while to realize how unreliable Eff was as the narrator. Once I started cluing in, I actually liked her a lot more as the tension kind of leveled up and I became invested in trying to figure out what was happening to her memories and what was happening around her. With little episodes of nightmares thrown into the mix, you start to get an eerie idea of what went down, but not all of the pieces fit at this point. Despite the fact that Eff is not always believable, I did like her character development and enjoyed her as a character. She was actually quite clever and quite uncanny, able to distinguish when someone was lying to her or withholding information.  I enjoyed the friendships she formed and thought the relationships were quite interesting. The secondary characters were quite entertaining and added a lot of depth to the story as well as some much needed comic relief. 

 

The plot is rather gripping and I didn't mind that it was a bit slow towards the beginning as the author used the time to set up characters as well as some intriguing plot points that would play a huge role later in the story. As I've mentioned, there are some pacing issues, but I didn't mind these too much as the strong world-building more than made up for the issues.  There were quite a few twists and turns, some of which were predictable, some of which caught me off guard. And I was definitely not expecting that ending!

 

Verdict

Nabukko was a very entertaining science-fiction novel with great world-building, strong character development, and some interesting twists and turns. While the pacing had some issues, I was able to overlook that by focusing on the rather intriguing mystery of why Eff was on the planet and how the colonists figured into her problem.  The secrets were revealed bit by bit and the author's style was to let the author figure things out, a style I really appreciated. I am looking forward to starting the next book soon.