The Man from Rock Bottom
Multiple beings work to save what’s left of humanity and bring hope to all in the ambitious science fiction novel The Man from Rock Bottom.
Stephen Eric Johnson’s winding and imaginative science fiction novel The Man from Rock Bottom is about humans and aliens navigating a failing Earth.
Sunflower City is the last refuge for all creatures inhabiting a crumbling planet Earth. Beneath Sunflower City lies Rock Bottom, a dark and desolate place where an infamous monster hunter, the Man, goes to save wayward creatures. With advanced technology like the Interstellar Network Link and spacecraft that travel faster than the speed of light, multiple characters work to save what’s left of humanity and bring hope to all.
The world is fleshed out with deep details about its creatures, including scaly peacekeeping dragons and soft, vulpine I’dray; the spaces of Sunflower City; and the physical workings of multiple alien ships. But the story is sometimes burdened by the length of its descriptions, which run long and involve piles of adjectives, as with a reference to a “cute, short, plump, utterly unassuming little man in [a] silly, ill-fitting outfit.” Past and present events are unpacked across multiple pages, as when one character informs three others of the Man’s troubled past midway through the book. Such instances of exposition make for a disjointed progression, in particular because the book is prone to jumping from fast action scenes into long explanations.
Further, the cast is quite broad. The Man and Scintillant Camor share the bulk of the narrative duties, but other characters are also given space. Garfi Lett, the Master of the Ministry of Defense, is introduced in the beginning of the novel, then all but disappears; Billy the Mutant Kid is speaks for a few pages before he is also gone. The shifts in perspective are jarring, and character development falls to the wayside. The Man, who is focal in the final chapter, seems fundamentally unchanged.
In a similar manner, the primary conflict is obscured behind the substantial worldbuilding. Despite the presence of sympathetic aliens who want humans to have a better life and humans who are working for or against this cause, the story loses its direction. At one point a revolution is mentioned, although this uprising does not constitute a major throughline in the narrative. By the end, no major turning point has been reached for those in Sunflower City; the story feels incomplete.
The Man from Rock Bottom is a complex and exploratory science fiction novel in which empathy could be the savior for a deteriorating civilization.
Reviewed by
Jennifer Maveety
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
