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A review by alyce6d980
Moonlands by Steven Savile
2.0
First off, I need to say thank you to BadPress Publishing for accepting my request to view this book on NetGalley, and to NetGalley for the service that they provide.
'Moonlands' is an urban fantasy book set between Earth and the Kingdoms of the Moon, a magical world where there are seven moons in the sky and thirteen islands lying beneath them. The Kingdoms of the Moon are being ruled by Elbegast, the King Under The Moon, but his daughter, and rightful heir to the throne, Ashkellion, is living in the mortal realm, so he sends a pack of highly trained assassins - the Wolfen - to eliminate his threat to the throne as quickly as possible.
We start the book following the Wolfen Alpha, Blackwater Blaze, as him and his pack flood the streets of London searching for their King's daughter. After most of the pack get destroyed by Targyn Fae, one of the heir's Wardens, Blackwater Blaze continues on his quest on his own, determined not to fail this mission.
Meanwhile, Ashkellion - or Ashley Hawthorne, as she's known at school - is living a normal life, completely oblivious to the fact that magical blood flows through her veins. After the death of her Aunt Elspeth, she inherits some strange items from the crazy old lady, and soon finds her whole life spinning out of control.
This is one of those books where the synopsis sounds amazing, and the idea is brilliant, but the writing just cannot pull it off. I was convinced that 'Moonlands' was a debut novel, because the writing style is clunky and ineffective, so I was mightly surprised when I looked on Steven Savile's Goodreads author profile and he has many, many works already published.
One of the things that really irritated me about the writing style was the constant use of repetition. I lost count of the amount of times Ashley worried about having an over-active imagination, or the amount of times the words 'oleaginous', 'ululating' and 'orrery' were used throughout (so much so that it really felt as though the author was clinging on to the words that he had discovered, rather than using them once to have an effective description - once something has been described as 'oleaginous' multiple times it really does dampen the image it produces). This was quite a long book (or it felt like it, despite the fact that it was under 300 pages) but it could have been drastically cut down if there wasn't as much repetition of facts that I was sure that any reader could recall.
Similarly, at multiple points throughout, the motives of the characters were overly explained.
Read the rest of my review here!
'Moonlands' is an urban fantasy book set between Earth and the Kingdoms of the Moon, a magical world where there are seven moons in the sky and thirteen islands lying beneath them. The Kingdoms of the Moon are being ruled by Elbegast, the King Under The Moon, but his daughter, and rightful heir to the throne, Ashkellion, is living in the mortal realm, so he sends a pack of highly trained assassins - the Wolfen - to eliminate his threat to the throne as quickly as possible.
We start the book following the Wolfen Alpha, Blackwater Blaze, as him and his pack flood the streets of London searching for their King's daughter. After most of the pack get destroyed by Targyn Fae, one of the heir's Wardens, Blackwater Blaze continues on his quest on his own, determined not to fail this mission.
Meanwhile, Ashkellion - or Ashley Hawthorne, as she's known at school - is living a normal life, completely oblivious to the fact that magical blood flows through her veins. After the death of her Aunt Elspeth, she inherits some strange items from the crazy old lady, and soon finds her whole life spinning out of control.
This is one of those books where the synopsis sounds amazing, and the idea is brilliant, but the writing just cannot pull it off. I was convinced that 'Moonlands' was a debut novel, because the writing style is clunky and ineffective, so I was mightly surprised when I looked on Steven Savile's Goodreads author profile and he has many, many works already published.
One of the things that really irritated me about the writing style was the constant use of repetition. I lost count of the amount of times Ashley worried about having an over-active imagination, or the amount of times the words 'oleaginous', 'ululating' and 'orrery' were used throughout (so much so that it really felt as though the author was clinging on to the words that he had discovered, rather than using them once to have an effective description - once something has been described as 'oleaginous' multiple times it really does dampen the image it produces). This was quite a long book (or it felt like it, despite the fact that it was under 300 pages) but it could have been drastically cut down if there wasn't as much repetition of facts that I was sure that any reader could recall.
Similarly, at multiple points throughout, the motives of the characters were overly explained.
Read the rest of my review here!