Scan barcode
A review by kribu
Roil by Trent Jamieson
3.0
Roil is a hard book to rate - and even to comment on.
On the one hand, the world-building was great. Unique. Fascinating. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into it, a mixture of alternative universe / high fantasy / steampunk (with possible scifi elements).
On the other hand, there's the writing. I suspect this may be a matter of taste - some people will love Jamieson's style, with its run-on sentences (seriously, someone should have exterminated 2/3 of the commas used in this book) and abrupt shifts in point of view and disjointed action scenes, some won't.
I'm unfortunately in the latter camp, and I found the book took me far too much effort to read - and not just because he clearly doesn't believe in setting up the scenes or explaining anything and instead lets the readers do all the hard work by piecing bits of information together in the hopes that it will at some point start to make sense. It did, eventually, but for me, it was more effort than it was worth, ultimately, as I spent half the book plain not caring about this world or its inhabitants because, really, why should I have cared when I had no clue who they were or what that world was about?
The ending was also far too abrupt, not the least because in the ebook version, the actual book ended at 93% in. I'm sure it was meant to get us all excited about the second book in the duology, but... I'm really not sure I'll be bothered to read it.
On the one hand, the world-building was great. Unique. Fascinating. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into it, a mixture of alternative universe / high fantasy / steampunk (with possible scifi elements).
On the other hand, there's the writing. I suspect this may be a matter of taste - some people will love Jamieson's style, with its run-on sentences (seriously, someone should have exterminated 2/3 of the commas used in this book) and abrupt shifts in point of view and disjointed action scenes, some won't.
I'm unfortunately in the latter camp, and I found the book took me far too much effort to read - and not just because he clearly doesn't believe in setting up the scenes or explaining anything and instead lets the readers do all the hard work by piecing bits of information together in the hopes that it will at some point start to make sense. It did, eventually, but for me, it was more effort than it was worth, ultimately, as I spent half the book plain not caring about this world or its inhabitants because, really, why should I have cared when I had no clue who they were or what that world was about?
The ending was also far too abrupt, not the least because in the ebook version, the actual book ended at 93% in. I'm sure it was meant to get us all excited about the second book in the duology, but... I'm really not sure I'll be bothered to read it.