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dr_ju's review
3.0
It was a fun read not only because of the story itself but especially because of the author. She was like an angler using all baits at her disposal to lure the SciFi readers into her hook.
The way the writer approached the story and her character at the beginning gave me the impression of the book trying to be some Young Adult SciFi-fantasy salad, but once I picked up some clues I'd started putting thing together.
Her character, Cris, isn't trying to be the classic spoiled rebelling teenager you find in YA books, but a replica of Paul, from Herbert's Dune. They are both highly educated children of influential people, they both contain high expectation and are both trained into martial arts by personal instructors that are their only friend. While Paul is rebellious, he is restraining his temper through meditation and mannerism his mother taught him. On the other hand Cris lacked that psychological support he could have got from his mother and his emotions are explosively expressed in his mind (he often exclaim to himself "shite" "stars!" and such things expressing fear, doubt or anger).
Other connections with Dune I could find is the network of commercial corporations that also control the economic and political aspects of respective civilization, the religion trying to get the reins of that specific network, special inherited abilities and
There is also an interesting point of view about Earth.
The second part of the book adopted an Ender Game-like approach. There is a secluded location within which a group of people are training, studying, divided in well-structured groups, interacting with each other and bonding together just to become trained military professionals.
The third part of the book is, from my point of view, a romantic YA set whose purpose is to bond the last of the readers who weren't hooked yet and give a higher motivation to the main character. Of course the secondary purpose was to represent the cliffhanging of the story I'm not going to spoil. Even if this part seemed a bit too cheesy to fit into the plot, the ending managed to make this right.
What I really appreciate at debut writers is them having good models and trying to reproduce their style. Despite the fact that it might be a mash-up of different elements from different writers and some things felt awkward, it was a really great start that promises the author to find her own style. More than the plot itself, I'm rather interested in her development as a writer and I will continue to read this series as long as I see some new sort of improvement; it's like discovering another story (already got the second book).
While I do not know how good it will be, I do see some potential here and I do recommend reading this first part, especially considering is free on amazon right now. (and the second is 90%off or so).
The way the writer approached the story and her character at the beginning gave me the impression of the book trying to be some Young Adult SciFi-fantasy salad, but once I picked up some clues I'd started putting thing together.
Her character, Cris, isn't trying to be the classic spoiled rebelling teenager you find in YA books, but a replica of Paul, from Herbert's Dune. They are both highly educated children of influential people, they both contain high expectation and are both trained into martial arts by personal instructors that are their only friend. While Paul is rebellious, he is restraining his temper through meditation and mannerism his mother taught him. On the other hand Cris lacked that psychological support he could have got from his mother and his emotions are explosively expressed in his mind (he often exclaim to himself "shite" "stars!" and such things expressing fear, doubt or anger).
Other connections with Dune I could find is the network of commercial corporations that also control the economic and political aspects of respective civilization, the religion trying to get the reins of that specific network, special inherited abilities and
Spoiler
an organization similar to Bene Gesserit juggling with eugenics of high born peopleThere is also an interesting point of view about Earth.
The second part of the book adopted an Ender Game-like approach. There is a secluded location within which a group of people are training, studying, divided in well-structured groups, interacting with each other and bonding together just to become trained military professionals.
The third part of the book is, from my point of view, a romantic YA set whose purpose is to bond the last of the readers who weren't hooked yet and give a higher motivation to the main character. Of course the secondary purpose was to represent the cliffhanging of the story I'm not going to spoil. Even if this part seemed a bit too cheesy to fit into the plot, the ending managed to make this right.
What I really appreciate at debut writers is them having good models and trying to reproduce their style. Despite the fact that it might be a mash-up of different elements from different writers and some things felt awkward, it was a really great start that promises the author to find her own style. More than the plot itself, I'm rather interested in her development as a writer and I will continue to read this series as long as I see some new sort of improvement; it's like discovering another story (already got the second book).
While I do not know how good it will be, I do see some potential here and I do recommend reading this first part, especially considering is free on amazon right now. (and the second is 90%off or so).
joseperth's review
4.0
Solid first part of a series. Entertaining and in my opinion decently written. However plot is quite conventional and predictable. There a few hooks that left me wondered how they’d be resolved and may tip me over to get the next on the series. Well played Ms DuBoff, well played.
rhodered's review
2.0
DNF at 42%. Writing was a little stiff for me, and the character was a sometimes sullen, not very intelligent teenaged boy. Well, he is suppose to be intelligent, but he's clearly not.
In part this low rating is my fault, I expect SF to be better in terms of complex writing, worlds and characters than regular fiction. This instead is a new writer trying to do a good job at pulp. That's ok too, and all power to her, I'm just looking for something else.
In part this low rating is my fault, I expect SF to be better in terms of complex writing, worlds and characters than regular fiction. This instead is a new writer trying to do a good job at pulp. That's ok too, and all power to her, I'm just looking for something else.
ludovica's review
The title of this book is extremely accurate. Reading this really feels like reading about the process of an architect – it’s extremely slow, nothing exciting happens, and in the end everything works out all the time.
I read 50% of this book and then skimmed to 60% before I decided I wouldn’t finish it. It’s just too goddamn boring to deal with the last 40%. Let’s break down some of the sections of this blueprint of boringness, shall we?
1) The hero is as boring as stale bread.
Cris Sietinen is the heir of one of the six big corporations that, together with the ominous ‘Priesthood’ make up the government of the world this story is set in. He is the second-born, but his older brother died, and apparently he felt like his parents are bitter over having him instead of his older brother as their heir, especially because he has telepathic/telekinetic abilities. So far so good. There is a lot of potential for anger and conflict and what do I know here – but the author just doesn’t really do anything with it. Cris knows that everybody else is wrong and that he should be allowed to use his powers. He knows that his parents are wrong. He runs away because he wants to ‘find himself’, something I have literally never heard any 16-year-old say, and of course he knows his way around everywhere pretty much instantly. He never really feels any negative feelings about where his story takes him, and while he does make a nice speech about how the Priesthood shouldn’t rule everybody, he has plenty few conflicted feelings about eventually returning to his family to pick up where he left off. Nothing ever really goes wrong for him. Which brings us to:
2) There are no actual setbacks. Like, at all.
Interesting stories are stories of failures, and of people trying to deal with circumstances that threaten to overpower them. There is nothing of that here. Maybe there’s a vague sense of threat at the beginning, but even that is harmless – so he doesn’t get to train his abilities while he keeps living in luxury, big fucking deal. So he tries to run away, and nothing goes wrong. He gets to the space port with hardly anything even complicating it. He finds a ship that will take him no problem. The people on that ship are nice, hard-working space merchants who don’t deal with illegal shit, great.
And then there’s all these conflict-teases that never really lead to anything worth reading.
Example: Suddenly Cris wakes up and the alarm of the ship is on. He floats through the air, coughs up his last meal, then floats through the ship – and turns out it’s only been a bit of friendly hazing instead of, say, pirates taking over the ship. Then he manages to get himself lost in the seedy part of a bigger space station. He nearly gets sold off into slavery – but nah, he manages to escape, all on his own, with not even a hair out of place. Later he gets attacked by an assassin sent by the Priesthood, who allegedly is the most powerful organization in all the universe, but honestly, a chimp with a gun would have had a better chance at actually killing anyone than that bloke. Even with a blaster-equivalent being fired off in his face, Mighty Cris of course doesn’t get a stretch – instead he activates his super special powers and the assassin runs off like a kicked dog.
3) If the hero is stale bread, the other characters are month-old rice crackers.
Seriously, all the side characters are basically there to transport Cris from point A to B, to act as an info terminal on two legs or to point out to him how special and powerful and unusual he is. Even the guy he spends a year with on board of a cargo ship stays what is basically a cut-out of your average sea dog In Space. Nobody but Cris has any backstory worth mentioning, nobody has any ambitions that don’t revolve around Cris, nobody has any negative feelings towards him.
Snore.
4) This might just as well be a thesis on the interior design of space ports.
About 20% of this book is an info dump delivered by the cardboard cut-outs that one might call side characters, 10% are Cris thinking the obvious or having inner monologues in very distracting and useless italic, and 70% are descriptions of every single goddamn space port and space base and other space space that Cris visits. I literally don’t need to know what color the crossbars at a tiny space port are. Seriously. It’s not that interesting.
5) Antagonist? What Antagonist?
So I guess you could call the Priesthood the antagonist? But not really, because they have ‘plans’ for Cris? Or maybe his father is the antagonist – but he’s literally not showing up anymore after 5% of the book. Or maybe the anti-telepath sentiment of this world is an antagonistic force? Well, could have been if his telepathic/telekinetic powers would not always work out to his advantage. Even when we enter the extremely boring training segments (from the 50 to 60% point) the author doesn’t even give us the curtsy of a school-yard villain or a disapproving mentor. Nah, everybody thinks Cris is just the bee’s knees. And if he tells them he’s not, he’s told that his humility is going to bring him far.
I’m still giving this book two stars because it was not offensive or bad enough to warrant one star. It just was… not really anything.
At the risk of repeating myself:
Snore.
I read 50% of this book and then skimmed to 60% before I decided I wouldn’t finish it. It’s just too goddamn boring to deal with the last 40%. Let’s break down some of the sections of this blueprint of boringness, shall we?
1) The hero is as boring as stale bread.
Cris Sietinen is the heir of one of the six big corporations that, together with the ominous ‘Priesthood’ make up the government of the world this story is set in. He is the second-born, but his older brother died, and apparently he felt like his parents are bitter over having him instead of his older brother as their heir, especially because he has telepathic/telekinetic abilities. So far so good. There is a lot of potential for anger and conflict and what do I know here – but the author just doesn’t really do anything with it. Cris knows that everybody else is wrong and that he should be allowed to use his powers. He knows that his parents are wrong. He runs away because he wants to ‘find himself’, something I have literally never heard any 16-year-old say, and of course he knows his way around everywhere pretty much instantly. He never really feels any negative feelings about where his story takes him, and while he does make a nice speech about how the Priesthood shouldn’t rule everybody, he has plenty few conflicted feelings about eventually returning to his family to pick up where he left off. Nothing ever really goes wrong for him. Which brings us to:
2) There are no actual setbacks. Like, at all.
Interesting stories are stories of failures, and of people trying to deal with circumstances that threaten to overpower them. There is nothing of that here. Maybe there’s a vague sense of threat at the beginning, but even that is harmless – so he doesn’t get to train his abilities while he keeps living in luxury, big fucking deal. So he tries to run away, and nothing goes wrong. He gets to the space port with hardly anything even complicating it. He finds a ship that will take him no problem. The people on that ship are nice, hard-working space merchants who don’t deal with illegal shit, great.
And then there’s all these conflict-teases that never really lead to anything worth reading.
Example: Suddenly Cris wakes up and the alarm of the ship is on. He floats through the air, coughs up his last meal, then floats through the ship – and turns out it’s only been a bit of friendly hazing instead of, say, pirates taking over the ship. Then he manages to get himself lost in the seedy part of a bigger space station. He nearly gets sold off into slavery – but nah, he manages to escape, all on his own, with not even a hair out of place. Later he gets attacked by an assassin sent by the Priesthood, who allegedly is the most powerful organization in all the universe, but honestly, a chimp with a gun would have had a better chance at actually killing anyone than that bloke. Even with a blaster-equivalent being fired off in his face, Mighty Cris of course doesn’t get a stretch – instead he activates his super special powers and the assassin runs off like a kicked dog.
3) If the hero is stale bread, the other characters are month-old rice crackers.
Seriously, all the side characters are basically there to transport Cris from point A to B, to act as an info terminal on two legs or to point out to him how special and powerful and unusual he is. Even the guy he spends a year with on board of a cargo ship stays what is basically a cut-out of your average sea dog In Space. Nobody but Cris has any backstory worth mentioning, nobody has any ambitions that don’t revolve around Cris, nobody has any negative feelings towards him.
Snore.
4) This might just as well be a thesis on the interior design of space ports.
About 20% of this book is an info dump delivered by the cardboard cut-outs that one might call side characters, 10% are Cris thinking the obvious or having inner monologues in very distracting and useless italic, and 70% are descriptions of every single goddamn space port and space base and other space space that Cris visits. I literally don’t need to know what color the crossbars at a tiny space port are. Seriously. It’s not that interesting.
5) Antagonist? What Antagonist?
So I guess you could call the Priesthood the antagonist? But not really, because they have ‘plans’ for Cris? Or maybe his father is the antagonist – but he’s literally not showing up anymore after 5% of the book. Or maybe the anti-telepath sentiment of this world is an antagonistic force? Well, could have been if his telepathic/telekinetic powers would not always work out to his advantage. Even when we enter the extremely boring training segments (from the 50 to 60% point) the author doesn’t even give us the curtsy of a school-yard villain or a disapproving mentor. Nah, everybody thinks Cris is just the bee’s knees. And if he tells them he’s not, he’s told that his humility is going to bring him far.
I’m still giving this book two stars because it was not offensive or bad enough to warrant one star. It just was… not really anything.
At the risk of repeating myself:
Snore.
morganish's review
3.0
This book won't win any awards for being groundbreaking or sophisticated, and it reads more like a very long prologue than a fully-rounded story. But having been caught between reading dark fiction and dense nonfiction recently, Architects of Destiny was benign and undemanding enough to be just the kind of thing I needed. The overarching story set up seemed to have promise, and though I didn't really respond to the characters or dialogue choices, the world felt solidly sci-fi: Tropey and fun and relaxing to read.
Fans of traditional space opera looking for something simple and light should give this a go, while sci-fi fans who prefer sprawlingly in-depth worldbuilding and heavy themes might want to look elsewhere.
Fans of traditional space opera looking for something simple and light should give this a go, while sci-fi fans who prefer sprawlingly in-depth worldbuilding and heavy themes might want to look elsewhere.
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