A review by toriliz
Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

So, I really wanted to like this. It has a lot a factors I normally love in books; dystopian/futuristic setup, the seemingly out of place character (hello Orcamancer), a shifting POV...but that wasn’t enough. On its face, this had really interesting ideas but the writing wasn’t the best at seeing them through. There was barely any change between character voices, which made it hard to follow along. There were lots of ideas that were either barely explored or mentioned once or twice and then they just disappear (the breaks, nanobonding, the genocides mentioned). And, I’m not sure what the end was supposed to mean, if anything? It felt like someone was writing and said “Nah, I’ll just end it here” rather than writing something that felt purposeful and tied the ends together. It had a lot of potential but fell flat in most areas. On the plus side, I know this doesn’t count towards the actual content at all but whoever did the cover art deserves some kudos. It looks really fantastic.
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