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A review by fairymodmother
The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach
2.0
Don't read if you want to go into this without expectations! Rating will be posted when SFFBC has had time to comment.
The prologue on this was brilliant. I loved the biotech, the setting, the unexpected gut punch of the attack...it was really engrossing.
Unfortunately, this is the only chapter that was polished to this extent. The rest needs a serious editing.
Most of my review is going to be about this editing, because the story was so confused that I'm not sure I can say with confidence what was going on.
A couple really cool things:
I think the mythology and the magic show a lot of promise. I really wanted to know more about this.
The tech seemed great, and I liked the fungal element. Again. wanted more.
I think the body horror was exactly the right dose to make it terrifying but not go over to grimdark.
There are a lot of inconsistencies in this book though. It was very clear that the author had "pantsed" sections (as in writing without an outline) and hadn't gone back to make things match up, so a lot of repeat info, a lot of small changes that all served as stumbling blocks.
This is also apparent in the lack of graceful transitions. We suddenly just start new scenes with new motivations and a new spin on what had happened previously. It made for a very clunky read that was hard to stay immersed in.
The ending was pretty much a mess. By about 60% I didn't understand in any sort of concrete sense what was happening, what it looked like, who was involved, or what the intent was, so I was kind of just waiting for the end. And THAT didn't make sense either.
I can also tell this was rushed because there are extremely easy grammatical fixes--changes in font size, missing periods, etc. that even basic copyediting would remedy. The author actually commented on this and it might be a technical issue with the version of file, but it does very little to inspire confidence.
A great first draft that needs probably a professional copy editor, and about 5 more beta readers who can give honest feedback.
The prologue on this was brilliant. I loved the biotech, the setting, the unexpected gut punch of the attack...it was really engrossing.
Unfortunately, this is the only chapter that was polished to this extent. The rest needs a serious editing.
Most of my review is going to be about this editing, because the story was so confused that I'm not sure I can say with confidence what was going on.
A couple really cool things:
I think the mythology and the magic show a lot of promise. I really wanted to know more about this.
The tech seemed great, and I liked the fungal element. Again. wanted more.
I think the body horror was exactly the right dose to make it terrifying but not go over to grimdark.
There are a lot of inconsistencies in this book though. It was very clear that the author had "pantsed" sections (as in writing without an outline) and hadn't gone back to make things match up, so a lot of repeat info, a lot of small changes that all served as stumbling blocks.
This is also apparent in the lack of graceful transitions. We suddenly just start new scenes with new motivations and a new spin on what had happened previously. It made for a very clunky read that was hard to stay immersed in.
The ending was pretty much a mess. By about 60% I didn't understand in any sort of concrete sense what was happening, what it looked like, who was involved, or what the intent was, so I was kind of just waiting for the end. And THAT didn't make sense either.
I can also tell this was rushed because there are extremely easy grammatical fixes--changes in font size, missing periods, etc. that even basic copyediting would remedy. The author actually commented on this and it might be a technical issue with the version of file, but it does very little to inspire confidence.
A great first draft that needs probably a professional copy editor, and about 5 more beta readers who can give honest feedback.