Quirky Cat
Written on Jan 21, 2019
Daisy’s Run is the first in a new series called The Clockwork Chimera, written by Scott Baron. The first novel follows a young woman named Daisy, on what seemed to be a typical, yet exciting, trip back to Earth. Okay, there’s probably nothing typical about a deep space trip involving cryo-sleep. Things get even stranger and more dangerous as time goes on until Daisy finds herself fighting for her very survival.
Daisy’s Run was an exceptionally faced paced science fiction novel, with dozens of twists and turns to be had. It felt like everything I thought I had a grasp on the story being told, another twist was thrown at me to change the direction of the novel.
There was actually a lot of ground covered during the course of Daisy’s Run. So much that I honestly would have judged the author, Scott Baron, had he decided to cut the novel into two parts. I can even perfectly picture where it could have been split and everything. Not that I’m going to complain about getting a longer book here!
There was a lot I liked about this novel. Ironically, something I ended up loving started out as something I hated. I originally thought that the plot of Daisy’s Run was something quite different. At first, I thought it was a blatant run off of 2001: A Space Odyssey, complete with direct references to it (the main character’s name is Daisy, after all). Admittedly the direct references and jokes made me a lot more okay with that idea. But as I kept reading, I realized that I was completely off base with my assumption. The novel is so much more than what I thought and was simply using the core concept of 2001 as a sort of a jumping point. It was pretty brilliant.
The novel was unpredictable in many ways, like what I just mentioned above. After the initial surprise, where the assumption was proven wrong, the novel kept changing and adapting, revealing new depths and hidden plots. It was an interesting choice, and one I’m certainly not going to fault Baron for.
I think I would have preferred to see the plot slightly redirected. While the novel was exceptionally interesting, it did feel like it was a bit all over the place. I believe that splitting the novel into two or redirecting the focus to just one or two main plots/major events would have resulted in this novel feeling more cohesive.
I think that any science fiction fan out there would love this series – especially if they’re looking for something with a female lead. She’s unique and flawed, but that just makes her more human in my mind.
Out of curiosity I went and checked to see if the next novel in the series was out. Imagine my delight when I saw that it was, along with several others! In fact, I found a listing for the next four books. I’m not sure if the series ends at the conclusion of the fifth book though. I didn’t want to look too closely in case of spoilers. But I do know that I have a new series that I can dive into, and that makes me insanely happy.
For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks