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ladymab's review
adventurous
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
So, I read "Vampires of Nightworld", the sequel, first -- years ago after finding it in a second hand bookstore, and I remember really enjoying it. Either it was just, overall, a much stronger book than the first, or my memory of it has been skewed, because the first one just does not hold up to how I thought it would go. It could also have been that the edition I read was frankly not edited or tampered with on purpose as it was littered with incorrect words, poor formatting, and various other small typos that made it impossible to focus.
It took me far too long to read this book because I could read maybe three pages at a time before I Had to put it down and do something else (like 7 months worth of other books). It has markings of your typical B Sci-Fi when it comes to the character tropes, but Turner's character was reduced to being described as "the fat one" in every change he was to be described which got real old real fast (like before the first time it was used). There was also just a ridiculous amount of self-aggrandizing about "the glory days of the British Empire" which, as it was written by an American, frankly makes less sense than if a British person wrote it. There was no real justifiable reason why an AI would decide to make and model itself after Queen Victoria unless you're a writer who never really left the steampunk phase of your life and failed to see just how bad a mindset that colonialism is.
I could have tolerated the book as just a "well it's a B Sci-Fi that has a weird thing for poorly conceived religious imagery" but when it came down to explaining the Second British Empire than conquered first the world then the stars, and when it came down to the SHEER AMOUNT OF TYPOS (please, one instance used 'anal' instead of 'and' and I lost my whole damn mind), I just chugged on for the sake of chugging on so I could finally mark this book as done. And in the end, the ending of the book itself does NOT match up with what I thought I remembered of the sequel, so I really have no idea what I thought I knew.
Ironically, I started it for the "shortest book on my TBR", and it took me (checks calendar) 8 months to read less than 200 pages.
Rating only not a solid 2* because Oliver still is, despite it all, actually an endearing character.
It took me far too long to read this book because I could read maybe three pages at a time before I Had to put it down and do something else (like 7 months worth of other books). It has markings of your typical B Sci-Fi when it comes to the character tropes, but Turner's character was reduced to being described as "the fat one" in every change he was to be described which got real old real fast (like before the first time it was used). There was also just a ridiculous amount of self-aggrandizing about "the glory days of the British Empire" which, as it was written by an American, frankly makes less sense than if a British person wrote it. There was no real justifiable reason why an AI would decide to make and model itself after Queen Victoria unless you're a writer who never really left the steampunk phase of your life and failed to see just how bad a mindset that colonialism is.
I could have tolerated the book as just a "well it's a B Sci-Fi that has a weird thing for poorly conceived religious imagery" but when it came down to explaining the Second British Empire than conquered first the world then the stars, and when it came down to the SHEER AMOUNT OF TYPOS (please, one instance used 'anal' instead of 'and' and I lost my whole damn mind), I just chugged on for the sake of chugging on so I could finally mark this book as done. And in the end, the ending of the book itself does NOT match up with what I thought I remembered of the sequel, so I really have no idea what I thought I knew.
Ironically, I started it for the "shortest book on my TBR", and it took me (checks calendar) 8 months to read less than 200 pages.
Rating only not a solid 2* because Oliver still is, despite it all, actually an endearing character.
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