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mistled's review against another edition
3.0
Akaela is a relatively short YA novel with a good premise and solid world-building that doesn't quite do it for me.
The Mayake people are cyborgs, of a sort. They are all born with physical deformities and have various machine/nanobot implants to assist them. Those may be bionic eyes or nanobots to help fight infection or whatever. Due to their inherited biological problems, they are one of two peoples who survive the plague that wipes out humanity. It just so happens that the other group, the Gaijins, are meaner, stronger, and more populous (or maybe just have better guns.. it isn't covered much). So there was a war and the Mayake were forced to stay on their tiny tract of land in the middle of nowhere scavenging for parts as their own chips eventually wear out, while the Gaijins' robots strip mine the surrounding land and leave them to hopefully die of mechanical failure.
That is where our story begins.
The actual story is told is first person, flipping between brother/sister combo of Athel and Akaela. The basic plot premise being that three members of the community, including our MCs' father, went on a journey to plead for assistance from the Gaijin. They have been gone long enough that their kids are starting to worry, and feel that they must do something to save the day.
The writing is clean and easy to read. It was a little overly simple imo, but it is YA and I haven't been Y for quite some time, so that may just be me. I did find the jumps between narrators a little confusing, but I mark that up to their names being similar, and their being in the same location much of the time. I'm also not sure what the point of the story being in 1st person was. Third person multiple view may have helped some portions flow better.
The actual "we're going to go do something" takes a tad long to show up, and the resolution comes very quickly. The latter being more of a problem, though I prefer that to drawing it out for no reason. But I did think "How is this 90% over? Is this going to be a cliffhanger?" only to go "Oh, that was quick" shortly thereafter.
The biggest thing about this book for me, is that I am very interested in the Gaijin, and we learn almost nothing about them. There's this build up where we think we might get to see them, and then... nope. To be fair to the book, the point was never actually about the Gaijin, but about finding out why the 3 ambassadors haven't returned. But as I was reading, I was expecting to find out more about them and didn't.
Overall, I enjoyed the characters and the world being built, but found the story a little weak. How well this one holds up may depend on how later books in the series turn out. By itself, this is a good scifi story, worth the $3 being asked for the ebook, and makes me curious to read other things by the author, but it doesn't stand out much in a crowded field.
The Mayake people are cyborgs, of a sort. They are all born with physical deformities and have various machine/nanobot implants to assist them. Those may be bionic eyes or nanobots to help fight infection or whatever. Due to their inherited biological problems, they are one of two peoples who survive the plague that wipes out humanity. It just so happens that the other group, the Gaijins, are meaner, stronger, and more populous (or maybe just have better guns.. it isn't covered much). So there was a war and the Mayake were forced to stay on their tiny tract of land in the middle of nowhere scavenging for parts as their own chips eventually wear out, while the Gaijins' robots strip mine the surrounding land and leave them to hopefully die of mechanical failure.
That is where our story begins.
The actual story is told is first person, flipping between brother/sister combo of Athel and Akaela. The basic plot premise being that three members of the community, including our MCs' father, went on a journey to plead for assistance from the Gaijin. They have been gone long enough that their kids are starting to worry, and feel that they must do something to save the day.
The writing is clean and easy to read. It was a little overly simple imo, but it is YA and I haven't been Y for quite some time, so that may just be me. I did find the jumps between narrators a little confusing, but I mark that up to their names being similar, and their being in the same location much of the time. I'm also not sure what the point of the story being in 1st person was. Third person multiple view may have helped some portions flow better.
The actual "we're going to go do something" takes a tad long to show up, and the resolution comes very quickly. The latter being more of a problem, though I prefer that to drawing it out for no reason. But I did think "How is this 90% over? Is this going to be a cliffhanger?" only to go "Oh, that was quick" shortly thereafter.
The biggest thing about this book for me, is that I am very interested in the Gaijin, and we learn almost nothing about them. There's this build up where we think we might get to see them, and then... nope. To be fair to the book, the point was never actually about the Gaijin, but about finding out why the 3 ambassadors haven't returned. But as I was reading, I was expecting to find out more about them and didn't.
Overall, I enjoyed the characters and the world being built, but found the story a little weak. How well this one holds up may depend on how later books in the series turn out. By itself, this is a good scifi story, worth the $3 being asked for the ebook, and makes me curious to read other things by the author, but it doesn't stand out much in a crowded field.
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