Becoming The Muse

Nexus Gate 4037: The Animal is a scifi novel by Candice Coates,  an author, blogger, artist and dreamer, born and raised in Ohio. The debut novel Nexus Gate was published on Amazon on 28 September 2018.

The plot follows Vivian Leona from the year 6037, a Time Surveillance Specialist on assignment in 4037, when she loses her husband in the Nexus of time past and mistakenly pulls a man from 1837 into the future. This has grave repercussions, especially in 4037, where any overt emotion or cause of such, is seen as a deadly contagion.

I participated in a Battle Of The Book Blog Tour for Nexus Gate over 5 years ago, prior to its publication but due to geographic constraints hadn’t had a way to actually read the book. After 5 years as a pending TBR, here is my review of Nexus Gate 4037: The Animal

The Good

Like any good tale with elements of time travel, it doesn’t really matter “when” the reader actually reads… It allows one to look back at current and historic eras from a vantage point that allows for a more reflective comparison.

The storytelling and world building draws you in and paints a picture which is easy to conjure up. You always know exactly when you are, you never feel lost in the flow of the story, which progresses in a mostly linear format even developing elements from the back story.

The characters are brilliant and by brilliant I mean that they are the sort that will pull a visceral response from you; on one hand you have Vivian a compassionate soul from a open-minded future and on the other hand you have a slaver bounty hunter from 1837 tangled together in an era where outbursts of emotional behaviour are viewed as a sickness with only one cure -euthanasia.

The themes in the book explore morality, racism/colorism and other prejudices people hold and how we deal with people on opposing ends of our beliefs and views.

It’s a gripping tale that will have you flipping through the pages to see where it all leads…

The Bad

And where does it all lead?… not where you would want as the story doesn’t end on a conclusive note, Nexus Gate 4037 is supposed to be the first part of a series… Five years later and I haven’t seen any news about the next book… *stares into the screen and hopes the author is reading this *

The Ugly

The 1800s weren’t a particularly kind era and due to the historical nature of the book, one gets subjected to a bit of the vileness that was experienced then, the racism and the slurs.

In the writing of this book the author made a decision based on personal convictions to abbreviate any profanity and swearing, while leaving the racial slurs in plain text for the reader to empathize with the victim, while seeing the victimizer for who they are…

Final Thoughts

The 480 pages breezed by ever so fast… it’s the sort of read that once you are fully immersed in it, when you put it down you find yourself coming back, meaning to just read a few lines and end up reading for a lot longer than you intended….

I hope the rest of the series is in progress 👀

~B