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_reese__'s review
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
It’s a fun read; mostly just for entertainment though brings up some interesting ethical questions. Overall I’m happy to have read it but nothing to rave about and I’m not on the edge of my seat for the next book despite the cliff hanger.
A few things:
1) It’s a pet peeve of mine when authors take things exactly as they are from the real world and insert them into sci-fi without changing much besides the name. I understand taking inspiration from the real world but I’d like to see a bit more creativity. For example, in this book the religion centered on “The God who shed Blood for Us”…so basically Catholicism. And Kystrene seems to just be Irish.
2) The budding relationship between Sean and Indigo was interesting but after finding out Indigo was the general that lead the battle/mass murder on Kystrom that wiped out Itaka (the largest city on Kystrom and Sean’s home) , it was kind of ruined for me. The author seems to try to make this ok by having Sean kill Benny so Sean and Indigo together made the people of Itaka extinct (Sean literally says this at the end of chapter 84) but the scale of murder committed but Indigo (it’s literally referred to as a genocide at some point) is no where near comparable to Sean’s killing of Benny. This is especially true considering Sean has repeatedly shown a distaste for killing of any kind (even the monsters that are trying to kill them on the ship) and only kills Benny (unintentionally at that) because he was going to destroy the data needed to save an entire population (the Ministers).
3. Someone else mentioned this in another review but the editing of this book could have been better. I caught a character referring to “degrees Kelvin”…. Just “Kelvin” is the unit of temperature. You only say degrees for Celsius, Rankine, or Fahrenheit. This is the kind of simple thing I expect to be right in sci-fi, especially if the author got a degree in physics.
A few things:
1) It’s a pet peeve of mine when authors take things exactly as they are from the real world and insert them into sci-fi without changing much besides the name. I understand taking inspiration from the real world but I’d like to see a bit more creativity. For example, in this book the religion centered on “The God who shed Blood for Us”…so basically Catholicism. And Kystrene seems to just be Irish.
2)
3. Someone else mentioned this in another review but the editing of this book could have been better. I caught a character referring to “degrees Kelvin”…. Just “Kelvin” is the unit of temperature. You only say degrees for Celsius, Rankine, or Fahrenheit. This is the kind of simple thing I expect to be right in sci-fi, especially if the author got a degree in physics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Child death, Death, Gore, Cursing, Violence, Gun violence, and Grief
martinatan's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Despite slow initial pacing that made it difficult to get into the plot, ultimately I came to appreciate the thrilling progression of events interspersed with endearing character moments. I appreciated that the story explored interpersonal and political dynamics with an ultimate message of unity and overcoming difference. I didn’t expect there to be a bio-horror angle but it came together decently and added to the disturbing nature of the setting. This book was not seamless in its plot and worldbuilding, but was still well-written and has a lot of heart.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Body horror
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Medical trauma, Genocide, Death, Medical content, Child death, and Blood
Minor: Grief, War, Cursing, and Xenophobia
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