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klieber's review
4.0
This was a quick, fun read that I thoroughly enjoyed. It's pulpy and the plot line is fairly predictable, but the author was surprisingly decent at character development. This isn't going to win any literary prizes, but it's a good, fun book that's a perfect escape for a longer plane ride.
danlewisfw's review
3.0
Pretty good book, it says mix of sci-fi and fantasy but I think thats an overreach. Its pure fantasy but its set in the modern world instead of some ancient time. Its a pretty engrossing story and I do plan on reading the sequel. It starts fantastic, the end is a little bit of a let down as its clearly just leading to the sequel with no real ending and thats a little frustrating.
ibri's review
4.0
Is it cynical of me to think that the meta reason Rachel died is that now he can hook up with Eleanor in the next book?
And whose genius idea was it to imprison power absorbers with other power absorbers, that has no potential of ever backfiring. None at all…
Btw at the very beginning I thought he was writing a book instead of homework and took him as an author who is well out of school, sadly he isn't but he was okay too.
And whose genius idea was it to imprison power absorbers with other power absorbers, that has no potential of ever backfiring. None at all…
Btw at the very beginning I thought he was writing a book instead of homework and took him as an author who is well out of school, sadly he isn't but he was okay too.
peter__b's review
4.0
That was surprisingly fun considering that the premise is a bit silly. And by 'a bit silly', I obviously mean utterly ridiculous. There's a whole bunch of fantasy and sci-fi elements thrown into this world and while the effort to keep it all making sense is valiant, it doesn't always quite gel properly. I have a weird need for things to make logical sense and so when I see things that don't, they tend to annoy me. That didn't happen nearly as often as I had expected though, so I still ended up being pleasantly surprised by the whole book.
The writing is nice and clear, which makes following along easy. The story moves along quickly for the most part with the only notable exception being most of the second act where the cliche "first love" subplot is developed. There's even a random vigilante side-mission sequence thrown right in the middle of that to obviously keep the reader interested, so I suspect the author knew it wasn't the most riveting part of the book as well. There was a bit of a 'bait-and-switch' feeling actually since the first act seemed to promise fast-paced excitement and then suddenly we got a soppy love story instead.
As I mentioned, the world is pretty inundated with classic sci-fi and fantasy elements which are actually managed reasonably well. However, especially towards the end, I definitely thought that the old adage of "less is more" should have been applied here. It gives the whole book a fun and exciting atmosphere though, so while I think a lot more restraint could have been used, I can see the appeal of that kind of world to a lot of people. It actually resulted in a minor annoyance in that the strengths of various magical entities weren't consistent throughout the story, making a lot of the earlier battles seem quite overplayed by the time you get to the end.
The characters were a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they were interesting and likeable, developed nicely throughout the book and mostly made sense in the world. On the other hand, secondary characters tended to be caricatured, the protagonist was great at everything he tried, a lot of the other characters weren't very original and the antagonists were the usual 'clearly evil' baddies that our hero had to overcome. The protagonist often felt either overpowered or too perfect which made it hard to feel worried for him, but he was still relatable and fun enough to care for.
There were a few nice surprises thrown in throughout the book and I liked how certain, inevitable plot points were handled. There's a lot of minor issues overall, but with the fast pace and enjoyable story, they weren't very noticeable while reading. I'd probably recommend this to most people who enjoy sci-fi and fantasy. While I didn't really like the open ending that much, I'll probably give the next book a read when it eventually comes out.
The writing is nice and clear, which makes following along easy. The story moves along quickly for the most part with the only notable exception being most of the second act where the cliche "first love" subplot is developed. There's even a random vigilante side-mission sequence thrown right in the middle of that to obviously keep the reader interested, so I suspect the author knew it wasn't the most riveting part of the book as well. There was a bit of a 'bait-and-switch' feeling actually since the first act seemed to promise fast-paced excitement and then suddenly we got a soppy love story instead.
As I mentioned, the world is pretty inundated with classic sci-fi and fantasy elements which are actually managed reasonably well. However, especially towards the end, I definitely thought that the old adage of "less is more" should have been applied here. It gives the whole book a fun and exciting atmosphere though, so while I think a lot more restraint could have been used, I can see the appeal of that kind of world to a lot of people. It actually resulted in a minor annoyance in that the strengths of various magical entities weren't consistent throughout the story, making a lot of the earlier battles seem quite overplayed by the time you get to the end.
The characters were a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they were interesting and likeable, developed nicely throughout the book and mostly made sense in the world. On the other hand, secondary characters tended to be caricatured, the protagonist was great at everything he tried, a lot of the other characters weren't very original and the antagonists were the usual 'clearly evil' baddies that our hero had to overcome. The protagonist often felt either overpowered or too perfect which made it hard to feel worried for him, but he was still relatable and fun enough to care for.
There were a few nice surprises thrown in throughout the book and I liked how certain, inevitable plot points were handled. There's a lot of minor issues overall, but with the fast pace and enjoyable story, they weren't very noticeable while reading. I'd probably recommend this to most people who enjoy sci-fi and fantasy. While I didn't really like the open ending that much, I'll probably give the next book a read when it eventually comes out.
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