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A review by tamaraneans
The Horns of Ruin by Tim Akers
1.0
The Horns of Ruin could have been a fantastic tale of revenge and theological theory in a steampunk world--instead it's a paltry, careless foray into a partial steampunk, magic tinged world that mostly leaves the reader with the question, "Who decided Eva Forge was qualified to be a savior at all?"
I think what I'm most disappointed with in this book is the careless feeling of it--Eva Forge feels like a concoction of a all-powerful female brute and teenage attempts at bad-assery. She doesn't feel realistic or sympathetic or even worth empathy--its as if she's been distilled from a teenagers desperate need for a female warrior without bothering to discover what could lie beneath her shiny, overblown armor. Her hatred, initially justifiable, becomes a hallmark of her character (what little there is). One of the most often used and most often bungled character histories is to have them hate something to the extent of it blindly dictating their actions. While this can be a perfectly relevant character trait, it should never be the only one and it should never be the pervading motive for a character for over half a book. Eva hates the disciples of the God who killed her God, that's fine, but blindly hating them when there is so clearly something else afoot is just poor quality.
Even her back story is uninteresting and unworthy of direct sympathy; what friends she has are never mentioned by name and never appear to show us something more than what Eva appears. She is haughty, arrogant and unwilling to accept help without complaining or lamenting or acting as if she doesn't need it at all while she has it. There's nothing about her to make her more than a teenager in action. As a consequence she lacks the necessary depth to make the reader care for her predicament, her trials and even her eventual triumph. Her fellow characters are similarly challenged and ill-fitted to bring out any further characterization. I, as a reader, simply do not care what happens to her.
What this book does have is pretty writing and an interesting world built about it. Tim Akers is nothing if not good at writing scenic portraits and describing battle sequences with relative dexterity. What he lacks, however, is the necessary depth in his dialog and character interaction to make this novel truly enjoyable. Conversation, when it occurs, feels very much like it was placed only to hurry the story to its next dramatic battle sequence, rather than interwoven with each other. It is as if it is some sort of grand tale wherein only the battle aspects are important and the rest shoved in for page numbers. But dialog is incredibly important in establishing characters and the tone of the story and this is where the book truly suffers. Eva is a battle-maiden and only a battle-maiden; what you see is what you get, and what you get isn't worth the time.
I highly suggest looking elsewhere for your steampunk fix. In The Horns of Ruin, Tim Akers disappoints.
I think what I'm most disappointed with in this book is the careless feeling of it--Eva Forge feels like a concoction of a all-powerful female brute and teenage attempts at bad-assery. She doesn't feel realistic or sympathetic or even worth empathy--its as if she's been distilled from a teenagers desperate need for a female warrior without bothering to discover what could lie beneath her shiny, overblown armor. Her hatred, initially justifiable, becomes a hallmark of her character (what little there is). One of the most often used and most often bungled character histories is to have them hate something to the extent of it blindly dictating their actions. While this can be a perfectly relevant character trait, it should never be the only one and it should never be the pervading motive for a character for over half a book. Eva hates the disciples of the God who killed her God, that's fine, but blindly hating them when there is so clearly something else afoot is just poor quality.
Even her back story is uninteresting and unworthy of direct sympathy; what friends she has are never mentioned by name and never appear to show us something more than what Eva appears. She is haughty, arrogant and unwilling to accept help without complaining or lamenting or acting as if she doesn't need it at all while she has it. There's nothing about her to make her more than a teenager in action. As a consequence she lacks the necessary depth to make the reader care for her predicament, her trials and even her eventual triumph. Her fellow characters are similarly challenged and ill-fitted to bring out any further characterization. I, as a reader, simply do not care what happens to her.
What this book does have is pretty writing and an interesting world built about it. Tim Akers is nothing if not good at writing scenic portraits and describing battle sequences with relative dexterity. What he lacks, however, is the necessary depth in his dialog and character interaction to make this novel truly enjoyable. Conversation, when it occurs, feels very much like it was placed only to hurry the story to its next dramatic battle sequence, rather than interwoven with each other. It is as if it is some sort of grand tale wherein only the battle aspects are important and the rest shoved in for page numbers. But dialog is incredibly important in establishing characters and the tone of the story and this is where the book truly suffers. Eva is a battle-maiden and only a battle-maiden; what you see is what you get, and what you get isn't worth the time.
I highly suggest looking elsewhere for your steampunk fix. In The Horns of Ruin, Tim Akers disappoints.