- Publisher: Roundfire Books
- Publication date: July 1, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 240 pages
- ISBN-10: 1803418354
- ISBN-13: 978-1803418353
- Author: Jack Davies
944 Hidalgo by Jack Davies is an ambitious attempt by the author to combine multiple story lines and characters into an overall tale of the impending destruction of Earth by an asteroid. Unfortunately, this attempt fails.
The book moves from one character to another from chapter to chapter often without any real coherence.It includes ‘superhero’ type characters with flaming hands and x-ray eyes, with no real explanation. It has gangsters and samurai swords and shotguns with pellets that somehow carry like rifle bullets. It has illegal aliens, the green variety. People die and then come back as now someone suddenly has the ability to heal them. It has androids that come in and tell their tale with virtually no impact on the rest of the story. You keep expecting hints dropped to come back and impact the story, and then they just float off into the ether. The same happens with some characters. I am not sure why some of them were even introduced other than to fill a few pages.
At times it reads almost like stream-of-consciousness. When this first happened, I thought it might be an interesting writing experiment, tracking a characters thoughts as they ricochet from one thing to another, perhaps building to something special. But it goes no where. It seems more like the author didn’t know what to write so he kept throwing things on the page hoping something would stick. He loves his metaphors, and uses them in great abundance, too great abundance.
Sometimes weaknesses in the writing style can be made up for with a great story. Again, not in this book. The story itself, and the subplots within it, really make no sense. At one point, the asteroid has months before it hits Earth, but then there are only three days. No one except a few of the main characters seem to have any clue about the impending impact. There are gangsters that show up to attack, mainly for the sake of showing an action sequence. There are a lot of good ideas for stories that are thrown out and scattered about without any of them really turning into stories. I’d suggest Davies pick one of these characters and write a short story just about them.
I will admit that this book was not boring. It kept me reading, but more to see if anything would happen than to find out what would happen. I was really rooting the author to find a way to pull together these random strings to create a satisfying conclusion. He does pull most of the main characters together at the end, but again, without good reasons or explanations… and suddenly they all magically have the exact skills and things they need to save the world.
Matt Truxaw’s newest book is Monster, which released on 1/12/2026. This urban fantasy, horror, thriller will keep you turning the pages.
He is also the author of the hard science fiction thrillers: “Plastiphobia/Plastivore” and “Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale”
You can find them all on Amazon in Paperback, Hardback, Kindle and/or free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
When you read any of them, he would really appreciate a review/rating on Amazon or your favorite book seller/book reader site.
More about Matt:
He was born in Orange County California many years ago and he still lives there. He has been reading books for most of those years and writing up book reviews for the last few years. He gets MANY of his books out of the library/Libby so expect a lot of old science fiction classics book reviews and other science related reviews in addition to newer books he comes across.
If you want to be ‘in-the-loop’ on these and other works, you can follow his author’s page on Amazon or his Facebook page.
For more reviews and articles by Matt here on Amazing Stories (Click here).
Monster: A Novel by Matt Truxaw
