[REVIEW] Godhead Sentiment, Juan Ibarbol

(Find it HERE.)

In high school French class I often sat across from a tall, quiet Mexican kid with a name our teacher loved to yowl across the classroom at random times. “IBARROL!” she’d yelp, and he’d dutifully respond with a verb conjugation. “IBARROL!” she’d howl, and he’d move seats to join a study group. “IBARROL!!!” she trumpeted–until one day, he looked back at her and replied, “There’s a “B” in my name.” She nodded– “Yes, at the beginning, right?” ⠀
With the patience of a saint, he answered, “Yeah, but there’s another one. My name is IbarBOL.”⠀
⠀
And thus, the universe ensured that I would never forget that name or that moment.
⠀
I didn’t know my old classmate was a fellow writer until he self-published this novella a couple of years ago. The name was familiar, so I snagged a copy and then later saw on Facebook that the same tall quiet kid from French class long ago was now indeed a self-published sci-fi writer. If you happen to come across this, Juan–congrats! I’m proud of you! Write more!😁⠀
⠀
I won’t give this an intense review (it always feels weird to do that when you sort of know the author) but I will say that Godhead Sentiment has an old school adventure feel to it. It reminds me of the pulp novels and Phillip K. Dick anthologies that first got me into the genre, mostly in all of the best ways. It has suspicious A.I.’s, corporate plots, 3D printed human beings operating off of transferred consciousness(think Altered Carbon, only less emotional) and a strange idea called Godhead lurking in the background. The action starts quickly and keeps its momentum until the end, where there are some genuinely affecting emotional moments. ⠀
The story has a lot of potential, and I kind of wonder what it would be like polished and stretched into a full novel, where some of the themes would have more room to breathe and characters could be expanded. Either way, I enjoyed the read for its nostalgia factor and the hints it drops leading to a road to rethinking the alpha male in sci-fi(jury’s still out on women, though.)⠀
⠀
You can find Godhead Sentiment as an ebook on Amazon, and because I happen to like how the evil corporate conglomerate provides very empowering opportunities for self-published authors from all sorts of communities to share their work with the world and get paid for it–this is one of the few times you’ll see an Amazon link on this blog. Any clicks and purchases put a few pennies in the author’s pocket so if this book sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to purchase it.

Peace, fellow readers!