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eoghann's review
4.0
The second story I'm reviewing for the #GreatIndieReviewProject is Archer: Book One of The Long Game by Richard Rohlin (and edited by Benjamin Feehan). It's a pulp styled superhero novella full of costumed heroes out for justice. It's also the first part of a larger series and as such there are a fair number of unresolved elements, but the story as told here does feel reasonably complete.
Basically what we get is the origin story of Roger Fitzooth and how he changes from a spoilt playboy into a costumed hero driven to bring his father and his company down.
Cliches vs. Tropes
Archer leans very heavily on familiar superhero and pulp tropes. The idea of the superhero whose public identity is that of a playboy is a trope for example, as is the type of hero that Roger becomes, an Archer. These sorts of things are the building blocks on which superhero stories are constructed.
While a vocal section of readers seems to actively dislike tropes, there's a larger (much quieter) group that appreciates them and the familiarity they bring. The trick that a good author has to pull off is to take those tropes and move them around a bit to make them feel fresh. If they don't do that, then we move into cliche territory.
You're definitely going to recognize all the toys that the Rohlin brings out to play with but the particular configuration and the presentation should be different enough.
There were a few places where it felt like maybe the author was trying a little too hard and being more wordy than was necessary or going with an obscure word where a more common one would do, but those were the exception. Mostly this was a quick and easy read.
A Quick Read
See, that was a cliche. It's also fairly accurate, both because at 91 pages this novella is fairly short and also because, true to it's pulp stylings, things move fast in the story.
The writing style is very visual with the action sequences given a lot of detail. I get the impression that a fair amount of research was done to make the fighting styles and weapons realistic. These are things that tend not to bother me too much, but they can be a major distraction for some, so that's a plus.
The majority of the book is from the viewpoint of Roger himself, but we do get a handful of scenes through the eyes of other characters. This not only serves to let us as the reader know some things that Roger doesn't but also gives his opponents a little more depth.
We move pretty swiftly from action scene to action scene and any gaps in our knowledge are effectively filled in by references and without the need to stop the action and narrate the history. Solid showing rather than telling.
I am curious why they chose to start the story in 1976 rather than the present day. To be honest it doesn't really feel like they take that much advantage of the historical setting, though it is possible it plays into the larger storyline. Certainly the setting didn't hinder things at all.
Things Happening Offstage
My biggest criticism reading this was that there were multiple references to events that happened in a time period during Roger's training. But those events weren't explained in the story itself. I understand that there is actually a short story that fills in the blanks.
It's a difficult balance to strike as an indie author. You want to lead readers to your other fiction and one way of doing that is serials and spin-offs. But it's very important that the reader leaves feeling they got a whole story.
And offering additional stories to flesh things out is fair enough, but the number of references to it here did have me feeling like there was an important story element that hadn't been included.
Footnotes!
Something that jumped out at me while reading Archer was the use of footnotes (well technically endnotes I guess). It used to be quite common to include footnotes so the author could provide either context or additional information for the reader, but they are quite unusual these days in fiction. It may have something to do with the costs of formatting and printing them in books.
That's not a problem ebooks have though and Archer takes advantage of it. In some cases it does feel like the note may not have been necessary, but it's not like you have to click on them and in other cases they did provide information I wasn't aware of.
Is This For Me?
Do you enjoy pulp style storytelling?
Are superheroes your thing?
Are you okay with reading a series?
This one might be for you.
Did You Like It?
Yeah I really enjoyed this one. It has the advantage of hitting a lot of soft spots for me. I enjoy superhero stories and I have a particular fondness for pulp styled storytelling, so I admit I may have a bit of a bias towards this. However, I also think it's a well executed example of this sort of story. I came away from it wanting to know more about this universe and the heroes that inhabit it.
Basically what we get is the origin story of Roger Fitzooth and how he changes from a spoilt playboy into a costumed hero driven to bring his father and his company down.
Cliches vs. Tropes
Archer leans very heavily on familiar superhero and pulp tropes. The idea of the superhero whose public identity is that of a playboy is a trope for example, as is the type of hero that Roger becomes, an Archer. These sorts of things are the building blocks on which superhero stories are constructed.
While a vocal section of readers seems to actively dislike tropes, there's a larger (much quieter) group that appreciates them and the familiarity they bring. The trick that a good author has to pull off is to take those tropes and move them around a bit to make them feel fresh. If they don't do that, then we move into cliche territory.
You're definitely going to recognize all the toys that the Rohlin brings out to play with but the particular configuration and the presentation should be different enough.
There were a few places where it felt like maybe the author was trying a little too hard and being more wordy than was necessary or going with an obscure word where a more common one would do, but those were the exception. Mostly this was a quick and easy read.
A Quick Read
See, that was a cliche. It's also fairly accurate, both because at 91 pages this novella is fairly short and also because, true to it's pulp stylings, things move fast in the story.
The writing style is very visual with the action sequences given a lot of detail. I get the impression that a fair amount of research was done to make the fighting styles and weapons realistic. These are things that tend not to bother me too much, but they can be a major distraction for some, so that's a plus.
The majority of the book is from the viewpoint of Roger himself, but we do get a handful of scenes through the eyes of other characters. This not only serves to let us as the reader know some things that Roger doesn't but also gives his opponents a little more depth.
We move pretty swiftly from action scene to action scene and any gaps in our knowledge are effectively filled in by references and without the need to stop the action and narrate the history. Solid showing rather than telling.
I am curious why they chose to start the story in 1976 rather than the present day. To be honest it doesn't really feel like they take that much advantage of the historical setting, though it is possible it plays into the larger storyline. Certainly the setting didn't hinder things at all.
Things Happening Offstage
My biggest criticism reading this was that there were multiple references to events that happened in a time period during Roger's training. But those events weren't explained in the story itself. I understand that there is actually a short story that fills in the blanks.
It's a difficult balance to strike as an indie author. You want to lead readers to your other fiction and one way of doing that is serials and spin-offs. But it's very important that the reader leaves feeling they got a whole story.
And offering additional stories to flesh things out is fair enough, but the number of references to it here did have me feeling like there was an important story element that hadn't been included.
Footnotes!
Something that jumped out at me while reading Archer was the use of footnotes (well technically endnotes I guess). It used to be quite common to include footnotes so the author could provide either context or additional information for the reader, but they are quite unusual these days in fiction. It may have something to do with the costs of formatting and printing them in books.
That's not a problem ebooks have though and Archer takes advantage of it. In some cases it does feel like the note may not have been necessary, but it's not like you have to click on them and in other cases they did provide information I wasn't aware of.
Is This For Me?
Do you enjoy pulp style storytelling?
Are superheroes your thing?
Are you okay with reading a series?
This one might be for you.
Did You Like It?
Yeah I really enjoyed this one. It has the advantage of hitting a lot of soft spots for me. I enjoy superhero stories and I have a particular fondness for pulp styled storytelling, so I admit I may have a bit of a bias towards this. However, I also think it's a well executed example of this sort of story. I came away from it wanting to know more about this universe and the heroes that inhabit it.
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