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A review by highlanderajax
The Maleficent Seven by Cameron Johnston
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Fair. It's an interesting take on a nice theme. As I've said before, I am a sucker for Magnificent Seven stories. Putting together a team of talents to Do Things? Hell yeah, I love that. This is a really fun twist, taking characters who would definitely be villains elsewhere and putting them into the classical hero role.
Johnston has done a pretty good job creating a couple of interesting characters here, and has got a fairly fun plot to go along with it. There's some really vivid descriptions, some nice motivations, and some fairly entertaiing fight scenes.
However, there are a fair number of things that just left me completely cold, and have me looking back at the book going "yeah, good enough, I guess."
Firstly, while the story is interesting, there's not a lot of worldbuilding. It would have been nice to have just a bit more information about, like, anything else that's going on. There's little to no explanation of how pretty much anything works here, which makes some of the reveals just kind of spring out of nowhere, rather than feeling earned. This kind of spills over into the rest of the plot, so I guess this is a combination worldbuilding/storyline weakness - the reveals either feel random or entirely predictable, never quite satisfying.
Second, the dialogue. One of the things that makes these types of team stories fun is the interplay between characters, and here so much of the dialogue feels stilted and artificial that a lot of that fun is lost. There's only a couple of characters that really come to life, with the rest feeling very flat indeed. In fact, the character work overall - with some exceptions - feels pretty lacklustre, and it really harms the overall work. A lot of the times, I was very aware that I was reading a manufactured conversation, rather than feeling that characters were talking and interacting naturally.
Third, while the plot is fun and the notion of using "dark" characters as protagonists is really interesting, Johnston's emphasis on things like torture, killing, dark stuff etc. means that it never really has much of an impact. There are scenes that feel like they should have some emotional or visceral weight, but when every other page has an organ being opened or skin being peeled off, it doesn't really hit home the 60th time. I can't help but feel that something abotu the bland way that a lot of this is discussed really stops it being an effective narrative tool.
Overall, this is a decent book, solidly fine. However, the slightly bland characters and some other lacklustre writing choices mean this never really rises to be an out-and-out fun read.
Johnston has done a pretty good job creating a couple of interesting characters here, and has got a fairly fun plot to go along with it. There's some really vivid descriptions, some nice motivations, and some fairly entertaiing fight scenes.
However, there are a fair number of things that just left me completely cold, and have me looking back at the book going "yeah, good enough, I guess."
Firstly, while the story is interesting, there's not a lot of worldbuilding. It would have been nice to have just a bit more information about, like, anything else that's going on. There's little to no explanation of how pretty much anything works here, which makes some of the reveals just kind of spring out of nowhere, rather than feeling earned. This kind of spills over into the rest of the plot, so I guess this is a combination worldbuilding/storyline weakness - the reveals either feel random or entirely predictable, never quite satisfying.
Second, the dialogue. One of the things that makes these types of team stories fun is the interplay between characters, and here so much of the dialogue feels stilted and artificial that a lot of that fun is lost. There's only a couple of characters that really come to life, with the rest feeling very flat indeed. In fact, the character work overall - with some exceptions - feels pretty lacklustre, and it really harms the overall work. A lot of the times, I was very aware that I was reading a manufactured conversation, rather than feeling that characters were talking and interacting naturally.
Third, while the plot is fun and the notion of using "dark" characters as protagonists is really interesting, Johnston's emphasis on things like torture, killing, dark stuff etc. means that it never really has much of an impact. There are scenes that feel like they should have some emotional or visceral weight, but when every other page has an organ being opened or skin being peeled off, it doesn't really hit home the 60th time. I can't help but feel that something abotu the bland way that a lot of this is discussed really stops it being an effective narrative tool.
Overall, this is a decent book, solidly fine. However, the slightly bland characters and some other lacklustre writing choices mean this never really rises to be an out-and-out fun read.