Federico Negri's "La Saga di Promise"

Federico Negri defines himself as a Sunday writer and as such must be judged without attaching any negative meaning to the concept.

He chooses science fiction, a wonderful but difficult genre, which requires competence and originality. “We are the Promise”, “Hearts of Steel” and “The Hostile Planet” are part of the Promise saga, a trilogy downloadable from the Internet.

There are many ideas, although not new: a terrestrial colony far from the motherland — which could vaguely recall Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles” — where the memory of ancient technologies has been lost and people live a new Dark Age, the arrival of a terrestrial spaceship with a mysterious artifact with terrible and surprising powers, a brilliant young scientist with a drug addiction. The fact is that all these elements are not sufficient to create an active participation of the reader, the need to know more. The planet described has no peculiar characteristics capable of setting the imagination in motion, the protagonists are still too terrestrial, they do, say, think things that have nothing alien or mysterious. The girl studies, gets stuck, takes a crush on a handsome soldier, nothing new under the sun, indeed no, under Tau Ceti. The atmosphere is missing, the creation of a secondary world, one remains in limbo, in a cross-section, in a “non-world”. This does not mean that, by developing everything with more patience, tenacity and “fun”, letting oneself go to the pleasure of adventure, invention and the discovery of otherness, the promise saga can really keep the “promise” of the title.

Interesting is the difference between those who live in the city, under the aegis of the Directory — and huddle around the remnants of the past, the old relics of a technology they no longer know how to operate, with computers and lights off, waiting for a deus ex machina from heaven to bring them back to their former glory — and, instead, on the other side of the wall, the so-called Free People, that of the “Straccioni” who have tried to adapt to the new essence and make the best of it. As in the movie “Waterworld”, where the character played by Kevin Costner has developed gills that make him suitable for the new reality of a planet almost entirely covered with water, but which no longer make him feel at ease in the emerged world. The core of the story, therefore, the profound meaning, can be found in the contrast between adaptation and entrenchment.

Of the characters, only Haria, the young protagonist with the habit of psychocoles, is well outlined; Fineri, the boy she falls in love with, remains in the background. More original, Galla, the rude soldier who makes a steady couple with Fineri. By the way, the names are also not too catchy and could have sounded better.

The style is simple, correct, but with some small inaccuracies, such as, for example, the repetition of the phrase “only more” instead of the simple “only”. Dialogues and descriptions often have the task of informing the reader and this weighs them down and makes them less agile and effective.

The goal that Negri sets himself is not simple and he carries it out with honesty and commitment, even when the results are not always the desirable ones. The story still manages to involve, it is smooth, and the reader does not struggle to advance.

The choice of making the ebook free and usable for fans of the genre seems to us to be right in this specific case.