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jwells's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I wanted to love this book more than I actually did. The world building is great, but several things about it annoyed me. Unfortunately, one big annoyance was in the beginning, and another in the end, so I was annoyed for a fair percentage of the book.
- A lot of the humor in Act I depends on fatphobia. Roen is unsuited to being a secret agent because he's out of shape and lacking both physical and mental skills, but the book really harps on the 20 pounds he has to lose, as if that's suddenly going to make all the difference. (You could be healthy, strong, and skilled, even with the 20 pounds, come on...)
- A love triangle, involving our protagonist and the only two female characters. (Incidentally, does anyone in real life call someone a "love interest"? I thought that was a piece of writing jargon, not something characters should say to one another.) I'll tolerate a love triangle, but not if it's the only reason women exist in this fictional universe, and especially not if it's resolved by the ancient, clichéd method of
killing a woman off. That's sexist, lazy writing, letting the protagonist off the hook of figuring out who and what he wants. - In general the romance subplot is so sketchy that I couldn't invest in it at all. Hard to care about the love triangle when you can hardly tell who these two women are, beyond the broadest strokes. The author spends the whole book setting these two women up as the "badass one" and the "nice one," only to collapse them at the end into "the princesses," when they are both taken prisoner. I get the video game joke, but was it worth taking all agency, and even personality, from the only women characters in the book?
However, a lot of SF readers don't care a bit about romance subplots, or even shallow characterization, when they get a fast paced, entertaining, action-y story. If you're up for a conspiracy theory with aliens that have been here for centuries, you might find it worthwhile.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Sexism
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