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A review by genderqueer_hiker
Skyfarer by Joseph Brassey
1.0
I found this book to be a walking stereotype of what people hate about fantasy novels (granted, the book was scifi-fantasy but the complaint stands). I love fantasy and have read hundreds of fantasy novels, and this...... I couldn't stand it. The language was beyond flowery and long-winded; it was incredibly grating and pulled me out of the (weak) story over and over again. The superfluous adjectives nearly killed me. I don't need you to talk about people's actions like "she drew upon her arcane magic... and sent it out with a mystical wind." Just take up poetry and be done with it.
The author was neither a good character writer nor good world builder. I already knew the outcome of our main 'villain-turned-hero' story by 1/3 of the way through the book; the plot was transparent. And I have no time in my life for a long winded story about how evil villains really are just people like us who had a rough childhood.... The world felt like a patchwork of pieces 'borrowed' from other authors' work. The characters were two-dimensional; I didn't care about any of the characters. Like, at all. The author repeatedly, throughout the entire book, chose to tell me, rather than show me, EVERYTHING. I was told how characters felt, not shown exchanges where I could infer how they felt. 'She then said the magic words.' What the hell are the magic words?!?! Don't reference them and not tell me!!! And the author's bias about each character was shown in the word choice - like 'she felt illogical relief.' I'm not stupid; I remember how she felt in the last chapter and I know that her current state of mind is different - I don't need to be explicitly told.
The author was also painfully, rage-inducingly repetitive. If this book was released in chapter increments, like in a serial publication, this might make more sense. As it stood, I wanted to scream quite frequently, but settled for nearly audible eyerolling. It was frankly insulting; the author never let me remember something on my own - it had to be spoon fed to me and rubbed in my face, as if I was too dense to remember it on my own. Like, in one chapter, a character has a flashback to childhood events. In the very beginning of the next chapter (maybe 5 minutes later), the character is experiencing something in the present and takes a pause to remember exact lines from the flashback we just read. And if I ever hear 'fear is weakness. weakness is death' one more time, I'm going to punch someone...
Needless to summarize, I couldn't stand this book and it definitely wasn't for me. I've read too many good authors to be able to endure this level of bumbling.
The author was neither a good character writer nor good world builder. I already knew the outcome of our main 'villain-turned-hero' story by 1/3 of the way through the book; the plot was transparent. And I have no time in my life for a long winded story about how evil villains really are just people like us who had a rough childhood.... The world felt like a patchwork of pieces 'borrowed' from other authors' work. The characters were two-dimensional; I didn't care about any of the characters. Like, at all. The author repeatedly, throughout the entire book, chose to tell me, rather than show me, EVERYTHING. I was told how characters felt, not shown exchanges where I could infer how they felt. 'She then said the magic words.' What the hell are the magic words?!?! Don't reference them and not tell me!!! And the author's bias about each character was shown in the word choice - like 'she felt illogical relief.' I'm not stupid; I remember how she felt in the last chapter and I know that her current state of mind is different - I don't need to be explicitly told.
The author was also painfully, rage-inducingly repetitive. If this book was released in chapter increments, like in a serial publication, this might make more sense. As it stood, I wanted to scream quite frequently, but settled for nearly audible eyerolling. It was frankly insulting; the author never let me remember something on my own - it had to be spoon fed to me and rubbed in my face, as if I was too dense to remember it on my own. Like, in one chapter, a character has a flashback to childhood events. In the very beginning of the next chapter (maybe 5 minutes later), the character is experiencing something in the present and takes a pause to remember exact lines from the flashback we just read. And if I ever hear 'fear is weakness. weakness is death' one more time, I'm going to punch someone...
Needless to summarize, I couldn't stand this book and it definitely wasn't for me. I've read too many good authors to be able to endure this level of bumbling.