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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
I'm sick of dystopians but throw in fantasy and ghosts, and you've got my interest.
The story and worldbuilding are definitely unique. A lot of thought went into this society. The world was cool, with floating towers for the upper classes and the lower classes living in the ruins. All technology is run by magic, so magic is currency. Xhea has no magic, so she's essentially always broke. She can see ghosts though and that's where the action comes in.
I love good friendships in books and I really fell for Xhea and Shai's. Though on their own neither character was anything special. Shai's a big question mark, because her history is the mystery of the book. Xhea is a the kind of character, which on paper (figuratively speaking) I hate. Bitter, angry, and a bit of a magic addict. (Though she didn't face any of the problems normal addicts face, so that part didn't bother me.) But in the end she was a sympathetic character. At first she comes off hard, but we quickly learn that she isn't really.
There were a few minor characters but none got enough page time to get to know them. Lorn, the young ruler of one of the lower skyscrapers, has the most promise. I'm curious about his mysterious history with Xhea.
The plot was rather slow, dispite all of the action and running. Xhea just reacted to everything, not really having a goal. Towards the end, she gained a goal but not a plan or the intellect to enact it. (Which was annoying but still entertaining.)
I hadn't planned to read the sequel but I might have to. No cliffhanger, but the author didn't answer all my questions!
The story and worldbuilding are definitely unique. A lot of thought went into this society. The world was cool, with floating towers for the upper classes and the lower classes living in the ruins. All technology is run by magic, so magic is currency. Xhea has no magic, so she's essentially always broke. She can see ghosts though and that's where the action comes in.
I love good friendships in books and I really fell for Xhea and Shai's. Though on their own neither character was anything special. Shai's a big question mark, because her history is the mystery of the book. Xhea is a the kind of character, which on paper (figuratively speaking) I hate. Bitter, angry, and a bit of a magic addict. (Though she didn't face any of the problems normal addicts face, so that part didn't bother me.) But in the end she was a sympathetic character. At first she comes off hard, but we quickly learn that she isn't really.
There were a few minor characters but none got enough page time to get to know them. Lorn, the young ruler of one of the lower skyscrapers, has the most promise. I'm curious about his mysterious history with Xhea.
The plot was rather slow, dispite all of the action and running. Xhea just reacted to everything, not really having a goal. Towards the end, she gained a goal but not a plan or the intellect to enact it. (Which was annoying but still entertaining.)
I hadn't planned to read the sequel but I might have to. No cliffhanger, but the author didn't answer all my questions!
Interesting lady-protags, interesting post-apoc(?) dystopia, complex magic world systems, good atmosphere... but just not grabbing me, even after a hundred-odd pages. No harm, no foul, just not for me.
An amazing story of two young women, one alive and dark, the other dead and bright, as they find each other and take on the world.
The world is a dark one of magic and conflict which seems built on the ashes of our world. Xhea seems to possess no magic at all, or at least not the bright magic that everyone else seems to hold, and partly because of this she lives her life in the Lower City. Above the Lower City hover the Towers, places of luxury and magic which predate on each other and jockey for position. Life in the Towers is pretty wonderful, with technology fueled by magic, but it's bought for a terrible price paid by a very few.
Xhea does have some abilities though, one of which is that she can see and hear ghosts. Which is how she encounters Shai, one of the Radiants that the Towers depend on both in life and in death for their endless font of magic. But it's readily apparent that the existence of a Radiant is absolutely torturous and Xhea resolves to help Shai as much as she can.
This book is written around the friendship between these strong and independent young women as they struggle for the basics of life: the right to exist without being exploited because of what they are. Their fight against the injustice of what other people have planned for them is a righteous one and drags the reader along with them.
The world is a dark one of magic and conflict which seems built on the ashes of our world. Xhea seems to possess no magic at all, or at least not the bright magic that everyone else seems to hold, and partly because of this she lives her life in the Lower City. Above the Lower City hover the Towers, places of luxury and magic which predate on each other and jockey for position. Life in the Towers is pretty wonderful, with technology fueled by magic, but it's bought for a terrible price paid by a very few.
Xhea does have some abilities though, one of which is that she can see and hear ghosts. Which is how she encounters Shai, one of the Radiants that the Towers depend on both in life and in death for their endless font of magic. But it's readily apparent that the existence of a Radiant is absolutely torturous and Xhea resolves to help Shai as much as she can.
This book is written around the friendship between these strong and independent young women as they struggle for the basics of life: the right to exist without being exploited because of what they are. Their fight against the injustice of what other people have planned for them is a righteous one and drags the reader along with them.
A perfectly cromulent fantasy book.
Xhea lives in a world with magic, but Xhea has no magic. She can, however, see ghosts. She ekes out a living scavenging in the ruins of a city where some unimaginable catastrophe has taken place. Think of those scenes in Wall-E where the cities are ruined piles of junk. THAT kind of catastrophe, though maybe not QUITE as drastic. It's still possible to go into the ruins and find bits of old technology that she can barter for food.
Everything that's left runs on magic, including the giant floating cities where what's left of "Civilization" runs. The floating cities are populated by the elite (i.e., rich in magic) people. They live a pretty decent life. But in an Omelas-like situation, it turns out that they run their cities on the magical emanations of people known as Radiants, because they give off so much magic. This magic will also kill them, so it's in the floating citys' interest to keep their Radiants going as long as possible. Even the Radiants' ghosts can get called into service. O.O
Xhea gets involved with a ghost named Shai. What happens with them is the meat of the story.
The book left me with some pretty vivid mental images, of floating cities in the air, ruined cities on the ground, and a couple of characters trying to find a way to exist in the middle of all this chaos and exploitation.
Decent book, though I'm not sure I'm quite interested enough to follow the story through the next couple of books. But that's just me.
Xhea lives in a world with magic, but Xhea has no magic. She can, however, see ghosts. She ekes out a living scavenging in the ruins of a city where some unimaginable catastrophe has taken place. Think of those scenes in Wall-E where the cities are ruined piles of junk. THAT kind of catastrophe, though maybe not QUITE as drastic. It's still possible to go into the ruins and find bits of old technology that she can barter for food.
Everything that's left runs on magic, including the giant floating cities where what's left of "Civilization" runs. The floating cities are populated by the elite (i.e., rich in magic) people. They live a pretty decent life. But in an Omelas-like situation, it turns out that they run their cities on the magical emanations of people known as Radiants, because they give off so much magic. This magic will also kill them, so it's in the floating citys' interest to keep their Radiants going as long as possible. Even the Radiants' ghosts can get called into service. O.O
Xhea gets involved with a ghost named Shai. What happens with them is the meat of the story.
The book left me with some pretty vivid mental images, of floating cities in the air, ruined cities on the ground, and a couple of characters trying to find a way to exist in the middle of all this chaos and exploitation.
Decent book, though I'm not sure I'm quite interested enough to follow the story through the next couple of books. But that's just me.
Radiant is possibly the only YA fantasy book I’ve ever read where the primary relationship is a friendship between two girls. Unfortunately, Radiant never quite connected with me.
Xhea is teenage girl who is, impossibly, without magic. Yet, she does have an unique ability: Xhea can see ghosts. She makes a living in the Lower City, shadowed by the floating towers above, by scavenging from the ruins and trading off of her ability to see ghosts. One day a man pays her to take away the ghost of a girl. This girl turns out to be Shai, a Radiant, someone who’s magic is so powerful that her tower uses her as a generator. And the towers won’t stop seeking Shai, not even after she dies.
There’s some interesting twists of world building to Radiant. While the story’s a fantasy, it’s also a post-apocalyptic, dystopian sort of book. The ruins Xhea scavenges in are clearly that of one of our modern cities (for some reason I kept thinking London). There’s no mention of what might have caused the end of our civilization or brought about magic, and likewise no mention of what lies beyond the ruins. Finally, there’s these creatures – “walkers” – that come out only at night and are avoided by those in the lower city at all costs. Are you thinking zombies? Because as soon as I heard of them, I was too.
While there were a lot of interesting elements to Radiant‘s world, they never combined to form a cohesive whole. I can’t shake the feeling that I wish there was more to it. Perhaps this is because most of what we see in Radiant, despite the magic, is familiar from hosts of other post-apocalyptic novels. It’s possible that the next two books in the trilogy will expand upon the world and provide more information regarding things like the walkers (I’m betting they tie into the magic system somehow). On the other hand, Radiant never gave me enough that I feel compelled to read the sequels.
I liked Xhea and Shai’s friendship, but I don’t know how much I care about them as individuals. Xhea is a common character type in YA post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels – the scrappy survivor with an innate specialness – and she never distinguished herself much beyond that. It was easy to feel sorry for Shai given what being a Radiant entails, but I’m not sure how much I know about her outside her friendship with Xhea and her status as Radiant. I will also note that Radiant is one of the exceedingly female led YA fantasy novels without a romance subplot. The only others I can think of off the top of my head are Updraft and Archivist Wasp.
Unfortunately, the plot structure didn’t do Radiant any services. It felt almost serial, like it was constantly starting and stopping as new developments to carry it along had to be introduced.
Although there were elements of Radiant that I found lacking, I don’t think it’s a horrible book. Merely an okay one. It’s also possible that it’d been over hyped for me and that I was expecting more than I got. I won’t be actively recommending it, but I wouldn’t discourage anyone else from giving it a go.
Originally posted at The Illustrated Page.
Xhea is teenage girl who is, impossibly, without magic. Yet, she does have an unique ability: Xhea can see ghosts. She makes a living in the Lower City, shadowed by the floating towers above, by scavenging from the ruins and trading off of her ability to see ghosts. One day a man pays her to take away the ghost of a girl. This girl turns out to be Shai, a Radiant, someone who’s magic is so powerful that her tower uses her as a generator. And the towers won’t stop seeking Shai, not even after she dies.
There’s some interesting twists of world building to Radiant. While the story’s a fantasy, it’s also a post-apocalyptic, dystopian sort of book. The ruins Xhea scavenges in are clearly that of one of our modern cities (for some reason I kept thinking London). There’s no mention of what might have caused the end of our civilization or brought about magic, and likewise no mention of what lies beyond the ruins. Finally, there’s these creatures – “walkers” – that come out only at night and are avoided by those in the lower city at all costs. Are you thinking zombies? Because as soon as I heard of them, I was too.
While there were a lot of interesting elements to Radiant‘s world, they never combined to form a cohesive whole. I can’t shake the feeling that I wish there was more to it. Perhaps this is because most of what we see in Radiant, despite the magic, is familiar from hosts of other post-apocalyptic novels. It’s possible that the next two books in the trilogy will expand upon the world and provide more information regarding things like the walkers (I’m betting they tie into the magic system somehow). On the other hand, Radiant never gave me enough that I feel compelled to read the sequels.
I liked Xhea and Shai’s friendship, but I don’t know how much I care about them as individuals. Xhea is a common character type in YA post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels – the scrappy survivor with an innate specialness – and she never distinguished herself much beyond that. It was easy to feel sorry for Shai given what being a Radiant entails, but I’m not sure how much I know about her outside her friendship with Xhea and her status as Radiant. I will also note that Radiant is one of the exceedingly female led YA fantasy novels without a romance subplot. The only others I can think of off the top of my head are Updraft and Archivist Wasp.
Unfortunately, the plot structure didn’t do Radiant any services. It felt almost serial, like it was constantly starting and stopping as new developments to carry it along had to be introduced.
Although there were elements of Radiant that I found lacking, I don’t think it’s a horrible book. Merely an okay one. It’s also possible that it’d been over hyped for me and that I was expecting more than I got. I won’t be actively recommending it, but I wouldn’t discourage anyone else from giving it a go.
Originally posted at The Illustrated Page.
Very original world & compelling friendship, as well as excellent writing. However, for some reason I just wasn't as gripped by this as I wanted to be; I really had to force myself to finish the last half. Maybe a mood thing!
Neat ideas ultimately bogged down both by the main character's poor choices and by the writer's tendency to ham-fistedly drag the plot from one scene to another.
The main character too often finds herself in a jam and is rescued by the timely appearance of either A) a new character who is coincidentally a friend of hers or B) one of Xhea's (or Shai's) many special powers. Both often rescue Xhea by authorial design rather than letting her rescue herself, and combined with her tendency to make rather boneheaded choices sometimes, this really made me feel like the character was being coddled by the author. Even the things that did affect Xhea's choices, like getting injured, happened pretty much by accident (a particularly bad fall, for instance, that the author just decided needed to seriously injure her). This was a hallmark of the plot: things happen around the character, pushing her from place to place with no action from her, until she heroically Decides to Do Something, and then suddenly it's incredibly easy.
The dangers in the book are handled strangely, of paramount importance in some chapters but not particularly worrisome the next. Xhea is also the luckiest person in the entire world, or she wouldn't have made it a third of the way through this book. She is often one, unarmed person where she shouldn't be, and yet she meets very little resistance for one reason or another and constantly evades capture by ostensibly well-trained security forces. Coincidence upon coincidence piles on to help her right when she needs it, until it's obvious that the plot has been specially constructed to let her do what should realistically be very difficult. It makes the plot practically unbelievable.
I didn't even particularly like Xhea. I think she was supposed to come off as this smart, tough streetrat, but instead she struck me as more bark than bite, not terribly capable and pathologically unable to know when to shut up (she would often give away information to her enemies by blurting things out and yet also would never ask important questions when she had the chance. She recognizes this herself, yet she doesn't change.) In a world where transportation between the levels is of paramount importance, she several times just runs away from her only way back home, and she wears clinky ornaments in her hair that more than once give away her presence to pursuers. Also, although she has very, very little social power and ostensibly knows the value of information in the black economy, she hardly ever asks for any information about why the high-class people she comes in contact are doing the things they are doing. She assumes she knows their motives and doesn't let these Clueless Adults affect her thinking. For reasons like this, she doesn't seem properly embedded in her world.
Being locked in Xhea's POV is a real weakness of the book, and I think it would have felt more rounded if the author would have let the reader into some of the other characters' viewpoints...if for no other reason it would make the plot make a bit more sense. Xhea seemed like a fairly helpless surly teenager through most of this, and I found myself desperately wanting to know what the adults were doing.
Plotwise, many things that randomly save Xhea's bacon are never explained: why are there zombielike things around, what are they, and why do they react to Xhea the way they do? Fearing, running away from, fighting, and being watched by these things takes up about a third to a quarter of the book, and yet that entire plotline is dropped with absolutely no resolution at all. Why is Xhea the only one who can stand to live underground (and therefore she can hide from everyone and search for resources down there unopposed?)? Why do certain characters owe Xhea huge favors that she can call in when needed? Why suddenly does Xhea's friend's powers work the way they do right at the end, when they did not before? It's obvious that the author has more books and stories in store, but these feel like frustrating plot holes rather than tantalizing mysteries.
Two stars for the interesting ideas about magic and the idea of the floating tower cities, but I won't be reading any more.
The main character too often finds herself in a jam and is rescued by the timely appearance of either A) a new character who is coincidentally a friend of hers or B) one of Xhea's (or Shai's) many special powers. Both often rescue Xhea by authorial design rather than letting her rescue herself, and combined with her tendency to make rather boneheaded choices sometimes, this really made me feel like the character was being coddled by the author. Even the things that did affect Xhea's choices, like getting injured, happened pretty much by accident (a particularly bad fall, for instance, that the author just decided needed to seriously injure her). This was a hallmark of the plot: things happen around the character, pushing her from place to place with no action from her, until she heroically Decides to Do Something, and then suddenly it's incredibly easy.
The dangers in the book are handled strangely, of paramount importance in some chapters but not particularly worrisome the next. Xhea is also the luckiest person in the entire world, or she wouldn't have made it a third of the way through this book. She is often one, unarmed person where she shouldn't be, and yet she meets very little resistance for one reason or another and constantly evades capture by ostensibly well-trained security forces. Coincidence upon coincidence piles on to help her right when she needs it, until it's obvious that the plot has been specially constructed to let her do what should realistically be very difficult. It makes the plot practically unbelievable.
I didn't even particularly like Xhea. I think she was supposed to come off as this smart, tough streetrat, but instead she struck me as more bark than bite, not terribly capable and pathologically unable to know when to shut up (she would often give away information to her enemies by blurting things out and yet also would never ask important questions when she had the chance. She recognizes this herself, yet she doesn't change.) In a world where transportation between the levels is of paramount importance, she several times just runs away from her only way back home, and she wears clinky ornaments in her hair that more than once give away her presence to pursuers. Also, although she has very, very little social power and ostensibly knows the value of information in the black economy, she hardly ever asks for any information about why the high-class people she comes in contact are doing the things they are doing. She assumes she knows their motives and doesn't let these Clueless Adults affect her thinking. For reasons like this, she doesn't seem properly embedded in her world.
Being locked in Xhea's POV is a real weakness of the book, and I think it would have felt more rounded if the author would have let the reader into some of the other characters' viewpoints...if for no other reason it would make the plot make a bit more sense. Xhea seemed like a fairly helpless surly teenager through most of this, and I found myself desperately wanting to know what the adults were doing.
Plotwise, many things that randomly save Xhea's bacon are never explained: why are there zombielike things around, what are they, and why do they react to Xhea the way they do? Fearing, running away from, fighting, and being watched by these things takes up about a third to a quarter of the book, and yet that entire plotline is dropped with absolutely no resolution at all. Why is Xhea the only one who can stand to live underground (and therefore she can hide from everyone and search for resources down there unopposed?)? Why do certain characters owe Xhea huge favors that she can call in when needed? Why suddenly does Xhea's friend's powers work the way they do right at the end, when they did not before? It's obvious that the author has more books and stories in store, but these feel like frustrating plot holes rather than tantalizing mysteries.
Two stars for the interesting ideas about magic and the idea of the floating tower cities, but I won't be reading any more.
DNF at 20%
The prose in this book feels like a cumbersome mashup of creative-writing class and YA stylistic affectations. The main characters are mildly interesting, but the world and plot are incredibly tropey. The author hand-waves explanations of ghosts, magic, vampires/zombies, and a haphazardly dystopian urban fantasy setting from the word go. I propose that ebooks like this be denoted as "epulp" to correlate them with their cheaply-printed counterparts.
The prose in this book feels like a cumbersome mashup of creative-writing class and YA stylistic affectations. The main characters are mildly interesting, but the world and plot are incredibly tropey. The author hand-waves explanations of ghosts, magic, vampires/zombies, and a haphazardly dystopian urban fantasy setting from the word go. I propose that ebooks like this be denoted as "epulp" to correlate them with their cheaply-printed counterparts.
Solid 3 stars.
I had problems with Xhea. I found her too whiney and unlikable. I did love the world and the magic system, so I want to continue with the series to see where it goes.
I had problems with Xhea. I found her too whiney and unlikable. I did love the world and the magic system, so I want to continue with the series to see where it goes.