This is a weird sketchy bootleg Doctor Who knockoff. Complete with an obvious plot, no character depth, and a boring main character. Not mu cup of tea.

I sadly was not even able to finish reading this. I tried multiple times, in the event I just wasn't in the right head space, but alas. I couldn't connect with the main character, nor was anything fascinating enough. The concept was nifty sounding, though.

Thank you for the book, but I didn't like it. I won't post a negative review.

I'm sure that I'm not the first or last person to say this: This book reminds me of Doctor Who. I love(d) Doctor Who and it's one of the reasons I was drawn to this book. Solid writing, interesting plot, & an intriguing main character. I'd be interested to see if the author turns this book into a series. I felt as if the book lagged a bit towards the middle and there were a couple of pretty predictable moments but overall I enjoyed it. I plan on getting this for my brother as soon as it's in print!

I received this ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Pilot X is a time traveler who in the opening of the book is the last of his race. He has his trust worthy ship that allows him to make the jumps and also seems to be more sentient than it lets on. If you're thinking of a long running BBC show, it's along the same vein.

The rest of the book deals with X's life before that moment, you go through each of his various promotions/occupations, Pilot X, Ambassador X, Instructor X - no Professor X though. He witness how each of his different time traveling escapades affect the timeline and possible paradoxes. The major underlying story involves the war and peace between X's race the Alendeans, the Progons, and the Sensurians and how it impacts less developed civilizations.

The general premise of the book is quite interesting. However, nothing is fleshed out enough. The Progrons and Sensurians sound like interesting alien species, but we're given a general overview. We're not given enough of the time travel history and rules and effects. Even X and his ship Verity seem to lack great character build up. One might blame the length of the book, but due to the writing style, I'm not sure if a book twice the size would be able to fill in the blanks enough.

3 stars. The book needs more world and character building.

Pilot X wasn't for me! It took a long time for me to get into the story, and even then I felt a little bored. It'll be good for YA readers looking for something in the SF genre!

"Physics abhors a paradox. It took a lot more energy than a little anger to rip causality from its rails and change the course of a whole reality."

Tom Merritt’s Pilot X told the story of a pilot, named X, who was tasked with ending a time war that was devastating the universe – a war between his own people, the Alendeans, and their enemies, the Progons and Sensurians. He alone held the power to stop the war and bring peace to the galaxy. But at what cost?

I thought the premise of the story was interesting. I love a good story about space travel and otherworldly adventures. Not only that, but the cover was attractive (yes, I can be vain at times). Because of this, I was excited to dive right in.

However, the story just didn’t thrill me. It seemed to be missing some crucial piece that made me unable to connect. I did not feel any particular attachment to Pilot X or to Verity in particular. I did not like Pilot X’s character; he seemed a little pretentious. Although he was often making jokes, some of them failed to make me see the humor. Don’t get me wrong, there were some particularly funny parts (essentially any witty banter exchange between Pilot X and Verity made for a good time), but overall I did not really get Pilot X’s humor.

I was also disappointed in the world-building. I felt that the author missed a huge opportunity. He introduced several interesting planets and races – for example, both the Progons, “a race of pure electricity that houses themselves in great machines,” and the Sensurians, “a unified megaorganism that can split up into smaller bits down to single cells” seemed rather interesting – but I feel like they were treated more as an afterthought rather than as a whole, sentient race. Instead, we see Pilot X attempting to make peace with each of these races individually – where one tries to poison him and the other tries to drive him mad – but ultimately, these races were not that thrilling. This ultimately made them seem not all that thrilling.

Overall, this book had a feeling of being unfinished. Because it was so short (only 179 pages), I felt like the author missed an opportunity to really focus on character-building and world-building, something for which I would have gladly read more pages.

Don’t get me wrong, it really wasn’t a bad book. Unfortunately, at least for me, I don’t think it lived up to its potential.

Thank you to Netgalley and Inkshares for a free copy of this eBook in exchange for an honest review.

Pilot X is a new science fiction novel by Tom Merritt being released today, March 14, 2017. This is a fun, fast read, perfect for a lazy weekend. Which, incidentally, is exactly when I read this book.

So what did I think of it?

Well, first, it’s fun.

In this book we follow our main character, Pilot X, as he flies through space and time in his ship Verity while rising through the ranks of his home planet. Pilot X is an Alendan, a race of humanoid beings who have mastered the art of time travel who have dedicated their lives to preserving proper timelines and overall policing of the galaxy. Many years are spent by Pilot X brokering peace with the Alendan’s longtime enemies, the Sensaurians and the Progons. Only, it was a false peace Pilot X was unwittingly brokering. There are deeper, hidden motives and the entire fabric of reality is threatened by a devastating war hidden from the entire galaxy.

The prose is straightforward, not flowery or very descriptive. If you are looking for long, beautiful paragraphs about the scenery, this book isn’t for you. However, if you’re looking for a fast paced adventure through time and space with direct and at times humorous prose, this is the book for you. Concerning the text and layout, there were a few section breaks which I had to question. The oddest editorial choice as far as sections breaks go was in the middle of a scene. There was no chapter break, just a section break where the story went immediately back to the same scene mere seconds after the last line of the previous section. Now, I did get an early copy, so there is a chance that this was changed for the final edition. However, I did notice this occurring more than once.

For better or worse, the story is reminiscent of Doctor Who. And I mean very reminiscent.

The Alendans are, basically, Time Lords. Their worries are fairly aligned with traditional Time Lord concerns. You know, preserving fixed points in time and the like. There are a couple of wonderful scenes where Pilot X confronts his enemies with small speeches of the sort the Doctor uses.

So, it might not be overly original. But it was still tons of fun. Things get a little ‘timey-wimey’ in a few places. I was a bit confused by the logic and surprisingly non-paradox inducing scene where Pilox X spends a total of four years with two other versions of himself. Hard sci-fi this is not.

While I did enjoy this novel, it did take me some time to get into this novel. I think part of this is the main character. Pilot X definitely had much more personality in the latter half of the book. Now, I understand why this is, and I actually rather admire the author for constructing the character this way. We follow Pilot X over the course of many years. The character development within that time is palpable, particularly in his personality. Heck, even Verity’s AI system has character development.

Still, I did enjoy reading about the person Pilot X became more as opposed to the person he started out as.

So. Do I recommend this book? Yeah. If you’re looking for a sci-fi adventure story to read on your commute or a deep space time travel novel to pass the time until a new season of Doctor Who comes out (it feels like it’s been ages since we’ve gotten a new season of that show) then you should pick up a copy of Pilot X. If you want a little more description in your novels, or if frequent section breaks make text difficult to read for you then this book may not be exactly what you’re looking for.

(Lengthened review to come shortly... Stay tuned...)

If you liked Dr. Who, then you’ll like Pilot X. X is a time traveler with a unique ship. He just wants to fly his ship and explore things. Suddenly, in a sort of ‘thrust to greatness’ move, he finds himself in a time war. X is an affable fellow with great empathy who really only wants to do the right thing. He adores his ship, likes helping fix people’s problems, and is very intelligent with a bit of a mouth on him. As I said, if you like Dr. Who, you’ll like X too.
An engaging read, Pilot X pulls you easily into the story. Though it couldn’t be called a thriller by any stretch of the imagination, the plot keeps you on the edge of your seat. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and all that. X is a fellow that you root for almost instinctively, and his ship, Verity, is an almost perfect illustration of believable AI. There are hints of personality here and there as the story goes on, but you never think of her as an individual character. She’s an awesome ship, but just a ship nonetheless.
This is mystery and drama in a science fiction setting. X pops in and out of timelines frequently, but it’s not a problem to keep track of what’s going on. This is because we only ever know what X knows. With Pilot X, Tom Merritt examines the perception of reality as filtered through the lens of controlled information.
My favorite line from the book was:
“It didn’t make him good or evil. It just made him responsible.”
I think that sometimes we get too fixated on assigning labels to people and forget that it doesn’t really matter. This one line in Pilot X cuts right to the heart of the matter. If what this person did is good or evil is in the eyes of the beholder.

Pilot X has great pacing, solid dialogue, and an interesting plot. It’s an easy read from a talented author, and well worth checking out.

The "dust jacket" description and cover seemed interesting, but, formatting issues aside, I lost interest in the story early on. The author spends a bit too much time in exposition, so much so that it impedes the plot (i.e., describing how people's names are spelled differently than they are written seems tangentially relevant when we will never hear the names out loud).