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hawkelf's review
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Look, I like tie-in books. I even like tie-in books of rough quality. I did not like this book. I was willing to write off some of my problems to it being a 2002 tie-in to an urban sci-fi/dystopia series, but that doesn't really do it.
It was like watching an episode on fast-forward. The fun answers to Before The Series (how Max meets her friends, gets to LA, gets a job) aren't answered creatively or are fast forwarded through entirely. There isn't a journey of a story so much as things happening one right after another, like an inexplicably well-timed check list, until well into the second half of the book when the plot finally takes some kind of shape.
I haven't watched Dark Angel recently enough to say whether there's any canon that's ignored here, but it does feel like the author is more relying on someone else's accounting of the show, rather than having watched it himself.
Also, the male gaze of it all is overpowering. The author seems more comfortable in male characters' POV than Max's, and as a sample of how he hyper-sexualizes all of the women, at one point Lydeckerthinks about an X5's 'pert breasts' as he shoots her. So that's fun. The author also constantly refers to all the womens' hands as tiny, which started to bother me after a while. If nothing else, I think he vastly misjudged the primary audience of this show. The 'hidden' pop culture references to everything from Harry Potter to Wheezer to Justin Timberlake where more tiring than funny, even twenty years later.
Again, I really wanted to like this book. I just didn't.
It was like watching an episode on fast-forward. The fun answers to Before The Series (how Max meets her friends, gets to LA, gets a job) aren't answered creatively or are fast forwarded through entirely. There isn't a journey of a story so much as things happening one right after another, like an inexplicably well-timed check list, until well into the second half of the book when the plot finally takes some kind of shape.
I haven't watched Dark Angel recently enough to say whether there's any canon that's ignored here, but it does feel like the author is more relying on someone else's accounting of the show, rather than having watched it himself.
Also, the male gaze of it all is overpowering. The author seems more comfortable in male characters' POV than Max's, and as a sample of how he hyper-sexualizes all of the women, at one point Lydecker
Again, I really wanted to like this book. I just didn't.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual violence
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