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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
dark
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Este libro es una joya. Es la fantaciencia que a mi me gusta leer y que tanto me cuesta encontrar.
Fascinating universe! But not enough character interaction, or explaination of the magical system. I appreciate bad ass women, but I need... more. More than raw brutality, blood and grit. Not just darkness for darkness' sake without even the tiniest bit of glimmer.
I'm beginning to think that I just don't enjoy Hurley's writing style. The blurb on the back of this book had me sold. Oh, and what's this? Someone compared the book to a Gene Wolfe novel for the way it sits with you afterwards? That is it. I was ready. I was going to like this book. Then, I got about 3 chapters in and realized I just... didn't. Nothing about the characters clicked with me. And they should have. Nothing about the setting or plot dragged me in. And it should have. This is a story about an assassin dealing with a shady war on a world with layers upon layers of awful happening. And I just... never got into it. I'm kind of upset with myself for it, actually. I kept finding myself skimming because I wasn't struck by anything on that particular page and then chastising myself. Hey! Stop! This book is good! And I couldn't convince myself. I'll try another Hurley novel, but this one did not make me a fan, yet.
This was quite the ride. Kameron Hurley has created a kick-ass heroine who's not 21, sassy for sassy's sake, doesn't wear spike heels and tight leather pants or have a tattoo.
Nyx is not a good woman. She knows it. She's got some notion of honor, but more of a knack for ugly, dirty survival. Her team is mostly stolen from a rival bounty hunter- another female jack-of-all-trades, specializing in guns, a comm operator, a shapeshifter, and a magician.
The characters and setting in this world are amazing. There are some rough analogues to earth-type cultures,mostly Islamic or other people of the book, but each place is definitely its own. There's Chenja, where women are property and men have 20 to 30 wives. There's Nasheen, where women pretty much run the show after sending most of their boys to the eternal war front with Chenja. There's Mhoria, where men love men and women are "deserts of secrets", at least to men. There's tropical coastal neutral Tirhan, which is honestly where I'd probably go to get away from the horrors of desert biological warfare, and there's Ras Tieg, where shapeshifters and homosexuals are stoned and people worship saints.
Hurley doesn't really bother to explain the technology/magic on her world. Magicians seem to be able to manipulate insects, possibly with pheromone control. They also have incredible healing skills. Shapeshifters seem to have some sort of genetic ability, but can shift mass and retain intelligence as a dog or a raven. But you just see the utility of these abilities, not an explanation. You're steeped in the characters' point of view, and they take all this stuff for granted and don't think too much about the whys of it. No info-dumps here. The world is vivid and brutal.
Poor Nyx is drawn to Rhys, her magician. He's a devout Chenjan while she's Nasheenian. Pretty much everything she does is blasphemy to him, but he's got to stay with her to survive. Nyx knows this is pretty stupid when it comes right down to it, but the heart wants what the heart wants. This relationship is pretty much the least interesting part of the whole book for me, though, because Rhys is kind of a prudish ass. I think that in many books, Nyx would be the villain. Certainly her old mentor saw her that way, and saw it as his mission to "end" her.
I was quite interested in Nyx's practical views on government and survival. She didn't know everything, and she sometimes made the wrong decisions. She was really a bitch to Khos for the whole book, and I could never figure out why, unless his big physicality intimidated her deep down and she was compensating for it. Khos was one of the most interesting characters to me, and I wanted to know more about him. There's been a flush of "dark" books lately, and I'm getting tired of people trying to follow this trend. But this book felt like it had to be told the way it was told. There was no pretentiousness, and I didn't feel like it was trying to be grim for grim's sake. This is a frightening world and it breeds frightening people. I totally bought into it.
The pacing on this book was amazing. When I had to put it down, I really wanted to get back to it to find out what happened next. Well-written action scenes, interesting problem-solving, unique characters. I really want to find out what happens next.
Nyx is not a good woman. She knows it. She's got some notion of honor, but more of a knack for ugly, dirty survival. Her team is mostly stolen from a rival bounty hunter- another female jack-of-all-trades, specializing in guns, a comm operator, a shapeshifter, and a magician.
The characters and setting in this world are amazing. There are some rough analogues to earth-type cultures,mostly Islamic or other people of the book, but each place is definitely its own. There's Chenja, where women are property and men have 20 to 30 wives. There's Nasheen, where women pretty much run the show after sending most of their boys to the eternal war front with Chenja. There's Mhoria, where men love men and women are "deserts of secrets", at least to men. There's tropical coastal neutral Tirhan, which is honestly where I'd probably go to get away from the horrors of desert biological warfare, and there's Ras Tieg, where shapeshifters and homosexuals are stoned and people worship saints.
Hurley doesn't really bother to explain the technology/magic on her world. Magicians seem to be able to manipulate insects, possibly with pheromone control. They also have incredible healing skills. Shapeshifters seem to have some sort of genetic ability, but can shift mass and retain intelligence as a dog or a raven. But you just see the utility of these abilities, not an explanation. You're steeped in the characters' point of view, and they take all this stuff for granted and don't think too much about the whys of it. No info-dumps here. The world is vivid and brutal.
Poor Nyx is drawn to Rhys, her magician. He's a devout Chenjan while she's Nasheenian. Pretty much everything she does is blasphemy to him, but he's got to stay with her to survive. Nyx knows this is pretty stupid when it comes right down to it, but the heart wants what the heart wants. This relationship is pretty much the least interesting part of the whole book for me, though, because Rhys is kind of a prudish ass. I think that in many books, Nyx would be the villain. Certainly her old mentor saw her that way, and saw it as his mission to "end" her.
I was quite interested in Nyx's practical views on government and survival. She didn't know everything, and she sometimes made the wrong decisions. She was really a bitch to Khos for the whole book, and I could never figure out why, unless his big physicality intimidated her deep down and she was compensating for it. Khos was one of the most interesting characters to me, and I wanted to know more about him. There's been a flush of "dark" books lately, and I'm getting tired of people trying to follow this trend. But this book felt like it had to be told the way it was told. There was no pretentiousness, and I didn't feel like it was trying to be grim for grim's sake. This is a frightening world and it breeds frightening people. I totally bought into it.
The pacing on this book was amazing. When I had to put it down, I really wanted to get back to it to find out what happened next. Well-written action scenes, interesting problem-solving, unique characters. I really want to find out what happens next.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I picked this book up because the opening promised a story unlike anything i'd read before:
“Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.”
I hadn't read like, straight (well, I mean, it's queer, but genre-straight. ish.) adult scifi in a while, and this felt like a good way to rectify that gap. And it is so incredibly different than a lot of other stories, and I'm pretty into it!
Things I liked:
The worldbuilding is RAD.
The characters are HUGE ASSHOLES but you still hope good stuff happens to them
This woman writes romantic longing PURELY in actions while the characters continually insult and belittle each other while DESPERATELY LOVING it's pathetic i'm so asjdfl;kj about it
There is so much plot and fighting and practical nitty-gritty scheming and a LOT of good bluffing
Thing I don't know how to feel about, because it's cool and gross:
Magic, and also almost everything in the world, runs on bugs. cars are organic and run on bugs. also they are bugs. houses are made out of bug secretions. giant bugs might eat you. oh my god. bugs.
A lot of the book is like-- delightfully cool and gross. this is not normally my style but i am really enjoying it.
Anyway it took me a while to get into the series but once I came back to it after the holidays I went all the way in.
“Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.”
I hadn't read like, straight (well, I mean, it's queer, but genre-straight. ish.) adult scifi in a while, and this felt like a good way to rectify that gap. And it is so incredibly different than a lot of other stories, and I'm pretty into it!
Things I liked:
The worldbuilding is RAD.
The characters are HUGE ASSHOLES but you still hope good stuff happens to them
This woman writes romantic longing PURELY in actions while the characters continually insult and belittle each other while DESPERATELY LOVING it's pathetic i'm so asjdfl;kj about it
There is so much plot and fighting and practical nitty-gritty scheming and a LOT of good bluffing
Thing I don't know how to feel about, because it's cool and gross:
Magic, and also almost everything in the world, runs on bugs. cars are organic and run on bugs. also they are bugs. houses are made out of bug secretions. giant bugs might eat you. oh my god. bugs.
A lot of the book is like-- delightfully cool and gross. this is not normally my style but i am really enjoying it.
Anyway it took me a while to get into the series but once I came back to it after the holidays I went all the way in.
There's so much that so very very good about this book. The world building is absolutely fascinating, from the technology to the social roles, Hurley has come up an engaging, exciting future. (The shifters do seem a bit out of place in this particular world, but I'll accept them) And then she's populated it with some good, well rounded characters (though some more than others), who come alive and draw our sympathies.
The problem is that so far Hurley seems to have found only one way to reliably keep up tension. Have the enemy capture a main character. Off the top of my head, I can count 5 separate occasions that Nyx is captured. Rhys, the secondary viewpoint character is captured twice. It just wore on me as a reader to see this bad-ass character repeatedly captured and unable to stop it. Not once does she turn the tables until she's been locked away or knocked unconscious. Is she one of the best? Because I can't help feeling by the dregs that Nyx really should get out of the business because she's incompetent.
I'm not sure about reading the sequel. The first quarter of the book I was expecting to be gung ho, but now I'm worried it will be more of Nyx and others being captured, or at least landing under another ton of bad stuff as the only excuse for tension.
The problem is that so far Hurley seems to have found only one way to reliably keep up tension. Have the enemy capture a main character. Off the top of my head, I can count 5 separate occasions that Nyx is captured. Rhys, the secondary viewpoint character is captured twice. It just wore on me as a reader to see this bad-ass character repeatedly captured and unable to stop it. Not once does she turn the tables until she's been locked away or knocked unconscious. Is she one of the best? Because I can't help feeling by the dregs that Nyx really should get out of the business because she's incompetent.
I'm not sure about reading the sequel. The first quarter of the book I was expecting to be gung ho, but now I'm worried it will be more of Nyx and others being captured, or at least landing under another ton of bad stuff as the only excuse for tension.
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes