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A review by cavalary
The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The combat scenes may initially be the one source of excitement, but you’ll eventually realize that much more thought and planning went into the world and characters than it first appears, and that you should have paid closer attention than you probably did. While never massive, the battle scenes become even more exciting, but there are also hints of depth in character development, glimpses of worldbuilding on a massive scale and some reasons to care about it all… And there may even be some traces of emotion in some sex scenes, albeit just those of the gay male variety.
All of that comes rather late, however, for much of the book the author seeming to try too hard in various wrong ways, not just oversexualizing everything but being crass and making the characters, with the possible exception of Archeth, particularly difficult to like, with the rare glimpses of depth and connections seeming scattered haphazardly around. And even after those aspects improve to some extent, descriptions continue to be written in ways that seem to string together the sort of “beautiful expressions” that I recall having to keep lists of in early years of school, while at the same time f-words are overused in a manner that seems to betray a lack of creativity, all of these making it harder to get clear mental images. And then there are all the instances of hero’s luck, though that’s pretty much the norm. And yes, there’s plenty of sex and most of it is just plain fucking, and if women are involved then they’re just used for pleasure.
All of that comes rather late, however, for much of the book the author seeming to try too hard in various wrong ways, not just oversexualizing everything but being crass and making the characters, with the possible exception of Archeth, particularly difficult to like, with the rare glimpses of depth and connections seeming scattered haphazardly around. And even after those aspects improve to some extent, descriptions continue to be written in ways that seem to string together the sort of “beautiful expressions” that I recall having to keep lists of in early years of school, while at the same time f-words are overused in a manner that seems to betray a lack of creativity, all of these making it harder to get clear mental images. And then there are all the instances of hero’s luck, though that’s pretty much the norm. And yes, there’s plenty of sex and most of it is just plain fucking, and if women are involved then they’re just used for pleasure.