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A review by subparcupcake
The Way of the Black Beast by Stuart Jaffe
2.0
Disclaimer: This was read and reviewed at the request of the author, who provided me with a free digital copy of the book in order for me to do so.
What can I say about this book? In short.. It wasn't all that great. The plot was bland and repetitive, the bad guys were very stereotypical and weak, and the main character.. She wasn't interesting at all. No personality, nothing to make me either like or dislike her. The side kicks all felt very interchangeable, you couldn't really differentiate one character from another. They all felt the same; very one-note and boring.
As for the world building... It hit on one of my pet peeves. The story reads like it's set on earth.. But it's not earth, it's some other place. I can't even recall the name of this other planet/place, because it was only mentioned once. But for all intents and purposes, it was earth with a new name and a couple new words/terms thrown in along with a couple of invented creatures. This annoys the shit out of me. For the love of God, if you don't want to invest some real time and energy into world building, just call it earth. It was supposed to be post-apocolyptic anyway, why does it need to be PA on another planet? It just feels lazy.
Back on the plot.. Bland. Repetitive. Yes, I used these words before, but I feel like they needed to be used again. It was just the same thing over and over.. Tracking down the bad guys, a plot point hurdle to jump, an anti-climatic battle scene, rinse and repeat. And talk about anti-climatic.. The final battle? Really lame. Just saying.
The only reason this is getting two stars instead of one is that it was actually written pretty well, all things considered. Any time I read a self published author, I go into it expecting typos galore and awkward writing.. I didn't see much of that at all in here. There were a few typos here and there, and a couple of sections where the writing made me cringe, but overall it was much better than I expected.
What can I say about this book? In short.. It wasn't all that great. The plot was bland and repetitive, the bad guys were very stereotypical and weak, and the main character.. She wasn't interesting at all. No personality, nothing to make me either like or dislike her. The side kicks all felt very interchangeable, you couldn't really differentiate one character from another. They all felt the same; very one-note and boring.
As for the world building... It hit on one of my pet peeves. The story reads like it's set on earth.. But it's not earth, it's some other place. I can't even recall the name of this other planet/place, because it was only mentioned once. But for all intents and purposes, it was earth with a new name and a couple new words/terms thrown in along with a couple of invented creatures. This annoys the shit out of me. For the love of God, if you don't want to invest some real time and energy into world building, just call it earth. It was supposed to be post-apocolyptic anyway, why does it need to be PA on another planet? It just feels lazy.
Back on the plot.. Bland. Repetitive. Yes, I used these words before, but I feel like they needed to be used again. It was just the same thing over and over.. Tracking down the bad guys, a plot point hurdle to jump, an anti-climatic battle scene, rinse and repeat. And talk about anti-climatic.. The final battle? Really lame. Just saying.
The only reason this is getting two stars instead of one is that it was actually written pretty well, all things considered. Any time I read a self published author, I go into it expecting typos galore and awkward writing.. I didn't see much of that at all in here. There were a few typos here and there, and a couple of sections where the writing made me cringe, but overall it was much better than I expected.