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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
The ending is pretty sloppy and rushed but man, is this a fun series. Dark though.
This review first appeared at readingthething.net
Just so you know, that is the risk you run when you read THE FLUX by Ferrett Steinmetz. This book will be published October 6th of this year (only a month and a day away, guys!) by Angry Robot Books. This is the second book in the ‘Mancer series; the first book, FLEX, I reviewed as well.
I’ll try to give my opnion relatively spoiler free, but the fact it’s the second in a series, gives some spoilers of the first book in itself (but after my review of book one, I do expect you to have bought and read it. Right?). It took me a bit to get warmed up to THE FLUX. You get dumped right into the story from the first page, but I found it hard to get the feel back. Maybe because it seems to want to and get you back in the atmosphere and give clues to the past, and be action packed. My brain couldn’t do that.
After a bit, I did did find the right feel again and loved the descriptions of all the different kinds of ‘mancy, and could relate to most of the characters, who have to deal with their life not being as it once was, and change is always hard even for people in books. However, there was this sense of things being too easy for everyone, especially with some plottwist that felt like deus ex machina’s at times.
And then… there is another plottwist, but this one makes it all right again. It made me yell at the book (see the tweet at the beginning of this post), because shit got real, and real is often horrible. There is genuine chaos, destruction and emotion, and it made the first two thirds of the book much better in retrospect, because it made this changing view in the mind of the main character much more intense.
So. Again. Get this book. Read it. Be entertained.
Just so you know, that is the risk you run when you read THE FLUX by Ferrett Steinmetz. This book will be published October 6th of this year (only a month and a day away, guys!) by Angry Robot Books. This is the second book in the ‘Mancer series; the first book, FLEX, I reviewed as well.
I’ll try to give my opnion relatively spoiler free, but the fact it’s the second in a series, gives some spoilers of the first book in itself (but after my review of book one, I do expect you to have bought and read it. Right?). It took me a bit to get warmed up to THE FLUX. You get dumped right into the story from the first page, but I found it hard to get the feel back. Maybe because it seems to want to and get you back in the atmosphere and give clues to the past, and be action packed. My brain couldn’t do that.
After a bit, I did did find the right feel again and loved the descriptions of all the different kinds of ‘mancy, and could relate to most of the characters, who have to deal with their life not being as it once was, and change is always hard even for people in books. However, there was this sense of things being too easy for everyone, especially with some plottwist that felt like deus ex machina’s at times.
And then… there is another plottwist, but this one makes it all right again. It made me yell at the book (see the tweet at the beginning of this post), because shit got real, and real is often horrible. There is genuine chaos, destruction and emotion, and it made the first two thirds of the book much better in retrospect, because it made this changing view in the mind of the main character much more intense.
So. Again. Get this book. Read it. Be entertained.
This book was just an incredible follow-up to the first book in the series, Flex. Everything is there: the character-building, the plot, the pacing. Besides Flex and The Flux, the only other book in the last few years that's given me that same feeling of can't-put-it-down was Ready Player One.
Closer to a 4.5.
So Flex is great, and if you've read it, you know that already. The Flux is absolutely in the same universe, but it's a very different book. That's not a bad thing, but it also means that there are parts that stumble and there's some attention to detail that needs to be done by the reader for things to truly pay off.
Overall, we're past the point of Flex and now Paul is inside the machine. But if the first book was about saving his daughter by any means necessary, The Flex, in a sense, is about Paul trying to save his daughter from herself. It's an interesting dynamic in the story in that there are things we can control and things we can't, and this story is largely about both of those things as a result, as Aliyah is torn between what's right and what's true. And she's eight. And there are good guys and bad guys, but a significant amount of grey to go along with it.
Yeah, it's that kind of book.
There's a lot of balls in the air here, and what Steinmetz does well is keep them in the air while not losing the sense of the overall. Sometimes there's an inbalance between the action and the story, sometimes things are a little longer than they need to be, but the key point is that the story works. The beginning is a crazy adventure, and the end is just an enjoyable boss battle in every way, including a part that both got me visibly excited and emotionally upset - I tend to be a stoic reader, so that's worth praise in and of itself.
Ferrett Steinmetz is a longtime internet friend/acquaintance, and so knowing some of the things that inform this book definitely has a director's cut feel as a result. I might have actually enjoyed this more if I didn't know some of what he's shared over the years, and that's a testament to how good this book is on a whole.
Overall? A worthy sequel, even if it doesn't reach those heights. Read Flex first, obviously, but give this series a shot. It's some of the more unique and enjoyable urban fantasy I've read as of late.
So Flex is great, and if you've read it, you know that already. The Flux is absolutely in the same universe, but it's a very different book. That's not a bad thing, but it also means that there are parts that stumble and there's some attention to detail that needs to be done by the reader for things to truly pay off.
Overall, we're past the point of Flex and now Paul is inside the machine. But if the first book was about saving his daughter by any means necessary, The Flex, in a sense, is about Paul trying to save his daughter from herself. It's an interesting dynamic in the story in that there are things we can control and things we can't, and this story is largely about both of those things as a result, as Aliyah is torn between what's right and what's true. And she's eight. And there are good guys and bad guys, but a significant amount of grey to go along with it.
Yeah, it's that kind of book.
There's a lot of balls in the air here, and what Steinmetz does well is keep them in the air while not losing the sense of the overall. Sometimes there's an inbalance between the action and the story, sometimes things are a little longer than they need to be, but the key point is that the story works. The beginning is a crazy adventure, and the end is just an enjoyable boss battle in every way, including a part that both got me visibly excited and emotionally upset - I tend to be a stoic reader, so that's worth praise in and of itself.
Ferrett Steinmetz is a longtime internet friend/acquaintance, and so knowing some of the things that inform this book definitely has a director's cut feel as a result. I might have actually enjoyed this more if I didn't know some of what he's shared over the years, and that's a testament to how good this book is on a whole.
Overall? A worthy sequel, even if it doesn't reach those heights. Read Flex first, obviously, but give this series a shot. It's some of the more unique and enjoyable urban fantasy I've read as of late.
I got about 85 percent through the book before I finally gave up. The characters were so wholly unlikeable that I found myself hoping something terrible would happen to the lot of them. This is very basic writing hidden behind a cute magic system and a slew of tiresome pop culture references.
I love these characters so much and I buy their weaknesses without feeling like they are shit. That is 5 stars for me.
This made me smile. It's such a fun world that grew a huge amount in this book. The thought put in reflected in a tight plot with great characters. Excited to read Fix, but have a few others first.
I read THIS one in draft too, wooHOO. If you loved the first, you'll love this one too; I dig that we get a deeper look into some of the bad guys here. And Valentine remains a delight.
I'm not really that interested in these books, but there's something in them that keeps me wanting to continue on in the series when it's hanging around and I've finished everything else I have to read.
I don't really enjoy the characters, though. Paul just doesn't work for me at all except when he's 'mancing, and Aliyah I just can't. I know she's partially based on a real girl who tragically died, etc., etc., but she doesn't feel real to me regardless of how real her mannerisms might actually be.
Oh, and the Fight Club thing is just not for me.
Buuuuuuuuuut, all that said, I will probably pick up The Fix because why not.
I don't really enjoy the characters, though. Paul just doesn't work for me at all except when he's 'mancing, and Aliyah I just can't. I know she's partially based on a real girl who tragically died, etc., etc., but she doesn't feel real to me regardless of how real her mannerisms might actually be.
Oh, and the Fight Club thing is just not for me.
Buuuuuuuuuut, all that said, I will probably pick up The Fix because why not.
Ok so here's the thing: I have the kind of anxiety that made me, as a child, hide behind the living room chair when I watched Scooby Doo. I was the avid reader who drank down any book she was handed, but who kept Stephen King's It locked in the living room closet with a chair in front of it between readings. I don't do drama well.
I especially don't do "people make choices that I wouldn't have made and it ends badly for them" well. I have nightmares about the characters. I worry about them.
I loved Paul Tsabo in Flex, and I adored Valentine, and everything that happened to Aliyah made my heart ache. It was an action-oriented romp with characters I could easily fall in with who won the day. (If you haven't read it yet, go fix that.)
And the first part of The Flux had my action adventure and my characters, older, different, but definitely themselves....
But because they were older and changed, they weren't getting along so well and while every one of them was making decisions that seemed right to *them* at the time, they seemed *wrong* to me, so by the time I finished Part 1 I had to put the book away for a few days. I'm still not sure if it was so I could spin down or whether I was punishing them -- sending the book to its room so to speak -- before I picked it back up.
Parts two and three were much more like Flex, but couldn't have happened if Part 1 hadn't set it up. And they still led to me tweeting the author with page numbers and "GODDAMMIT [character]" as they continued to make bad choices.
If Flex was about learning the universe, The Flux was about learning the characters, and as much as that is *totally* not my thing, between pages 167 and the end I couldn't put it down.
And the characters *did* learn their lessons and they *did* get their shit straight and I'm *still* going to worry about them when I go to bed tonight, but that's why we read -- well, one of a thousand important reasons, but a good one.
Thank you Mr. Steinmetz and I look forward to the next one.
I especially don't do "people make choices that I wouldn't have made and it ends badly for them" well. I have nightmares about the characters. I worry about them.
I loved Paul Tsabo in Flex, and I adored Valentine, and everything that happened to Aliyah made my heart ache. It was an action-oriented romp with characters I could easily fall in with who won the day. (If you haven't read it yet, go fix that.)
And the first part of The Flux had my action adventure and my characters, older, different, but definitely themselves....
But because they were older and changed, they weren't getting along so well and while every one of them was making decisions that seemed right to *them* at the time, they seemed *wrong* to me, so by the time I finished Part 1 I had to put the book away for a few days. I'm still not sure if it was so I could spin down or whether I was punishing them -- sending the book to its room so to speak -- before I picked it back up.
Parts two and three were much more like Flex, but couldn't have happened if Part 1 hadn't set it up. And they still led to me tweeting the author with page numbers and "GODDAMMIT [character]" as they continued to make bad choices.
If Flex was about learning the universe, The Flux was about learning the characters, and as much as that is *totally* not my thing, between pages 167 and the end I couldn't put it down.
And the characters *did* learn their lessons and they *did* get their shit straight and I'm *still* going to worry about them when I go to bed tonight, but that's why we read -- well, one of a thousand important reasons, but a good one.
Thank you Mr. Steinmetz and I look forward to the next one.