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A review by twocents
Aetherbound by E.K. Johnston
2.0
Going off the way Goodreads labels the stars, and this is a solid "it was okay."
Everything was too extreme. The bad guys are comically bad, even as children, torturing the main character without repercussion. The good guys are perfectly good, beloved by all, without question.
All plans work perfectly, on the first try. Need information? Ask this one guy and be able to perfectly put together what's going on. Pendt gets off on a station and "goes on the run"? The very first people she runs into at a "seedy bar" are perfectly able to solve her problem, and actually, she doesn't have to run anywhere!
There's also apparently LGBT+ representation, which I only picked up on reading someone else's review.
The epilogue is especially heavy handed.
It's just a bit hard to care about the characters or the situations when everyone is perfect, and even the villains are perfect in their inability to even accidentally be decent people.
Everything was too extreme. The bad guys are comically bad, even as children, torturing the main character without repercussion. The good guys are perfectly good, beloved by all, without question.
All plans work perfectly, on the first try. Need information? Ask this one guy and be able to perfectly put together what's going on. Pendt gets off on a station and "goes on the run"? The very first people she runs into at a "seedy bar" are perfectly able to solve her problem, and actually, she doesn't have to run anywhere!
There's also apparently LGBT+ representation, which I only picked up on reading someone else's review.
Spoiler
Fisher is assumed to be a transman, rather than, say, having a chromosonal abnormality, because that apparently never happens. Him being trans is perfectly accepted, though no one ever actually mentions it in the story, enough that Pendt can joke about how Ned is "one of a kind even with a twin brother." Apparently fraternal twins don't exist in this universe either.The epilogue is especially heavy handed.
Spoiler
Despite the problem apparently literally burning through the lives of thousands of gene-mages, Pendt is just perfectly capable of solving the problem single-handedly, with no formal training or education, and now planning a mission to save the universe!It's just a bit hard to care about the characters or the situations when everyone is perfect, and even the villains are perfect in their inability to even accidentally be decent people.