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kcdayton 's review for:
The Alchemists of Loom
by Elise Kova
(This is listed as a YA book, but I think it's more New Adult, because while there's definitely a slight hint of romance, there's no love triangle, and it's not the focus of the book.)
I borrowed this as an audiobook from Hoopla. It is narrated by a pair of narrators, Erin Moon and Tim Campbell. I liked the two narrators, and both were good at having multiple voices for different characters, but the POV change seemed random. However, because they state the name of the POV character before launching into that section, I think this was more on the author than on the narrators. I did like that the POV change mostly stays in the same area or comes at a logical breaking point; unlike some POV change High Fantasy stories, there were only a handful of POV characters, and they were mostly all in the same city. It didn't bug me as much as POV changes in other situations have bugged me, is what I'm saying.
Oddly, Erin Moon mispronounces words several times that she pronounces correctly elsewhere. This happened multiple times. For instance, she pronounced "sconce" as "scone" but pronounced it correctly elsewhere. A "reevo" was pronounced "rehvo" just once; "Sophie" was pronounced "Sophia" another time. (There were more instances; these are just the ones I remember.) It was jarring, to say the least.
Another thing that made this book a little difficult to understand is that while there is an info dump explaining the two races, it doesn't happen immediately. So Ari is attempting to fight Cvareh, a "dragon", but it's not until a few chapters later that we get an explanation that "dragons" are nothing like what you imagine--they have claws and fangs and magic, sure, but they're mostly humanoid apart from those features. "Dragon riders" are these "dragons" who ride magical gliders. There's nothing of Pern here, is what I'm getting at. (The book even lampshades this.)
Also, the author couldn't decide what color Ari's eyes were. They were purplish for sure, but they were called so many different shades, it read like the author opened the thesaurus to "purple" and was like "purple prose is a no-go? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" and then was like "haha I am so punny". It wasn't a huge issue, but it was something I think an editor should have asked about. Also also, the book takes place over the course of several weeks/months, per the characters' own statements, but it definitely doesn't read like that. If you told me it took place over the course of 1-2 weeks, that seemed much more plausible. Minor quibbles, tho.
I wouldn't say this book ends with a cliffhanger, but it's definitely not a completed story. Florence is clearly just coming into her own; Ari has a backstory that was deftly hinted at but not completely explained; I would not be surprised if Cvareh ended up having some secrets as well. Also, despite being in the title, the Alchemists don't show up until almost the end of the story.
It was, however, extremely compelling to listen to, and I really liked the characters. It was new and interesting and quite different than most of the other stuff that gets published, trying to be "the next Twilight" or "the next Harry Potter". It's closest in tone to Philip Reeve's Fever Crumb books, in my opinion, which have a similar theme of guilds of engineers and a race of those who believe themselves superior and a main character who's more than she seems (of course she is! she's the main character, that's how these things work).
Will I listen to or read the sequel? Maybe. I think I'd be more likely to read it rather than listen to it, as this audiobook was a whopping 10+ hours long, which was a little too long for my tastes. I prefer to get through stories more quickly! I did like the author, and will look for more by her.
I borrowed this as an audiobook from Hoopla. It is narrated by a pair of narrators, Erin Moon and Tim Campbell. I liked the two narrators, and both were good at having multiple voices for different characters, but the POV change seemed random. However, because they state the name of the POV character before launching into that section, I think this was more on the author than on the narrators. I did like that the POV change mostly stays in the same area or comes at a logical breaking point; unlike some POV change High Fantasy stories, there were only a handful of POV characters, and they were mostly all in the same city. It didn't bug me as much as POV changes in other situations have bugged me, is what I'm saying.
Oddly, Erin Moon mispronounces words several times that she pronounces correctly elsewhere. This happened multiple times. For instance, she pronounced "sconce" as "scone" but pronounced it correctly elsewhere. A "reevo" was pronounced "rehvo" just once; "Sophie" was pronounced "Sophia" another time. (There were more instances; these are just the ones I remember.) It was jarring, to say the least.
Another thing that made this book a little difficult to understand is that while there is an info dump explaining the two races, it doesn't happen immediately. So Ari is attempting to fight Cvareh, a "dragon", but it's not until a few chapters later that we get an explanation that "dragons" are nothing like what you imagine--they have claws and fangs and magic, sure, but they're mostly humanoid apart from those features. "Dragon riders" are these "dragons" who ride magical gliders. There's nothing of Pern here, is what I'm getting at. (The book even lampshades this.)
Also, the author couldn't decide what color Ari's eyes were. They were purplish for sure, but they were called so many different shades, it read like the author opened the thesaurus to "purple" and was like "purple prose is a no-go? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" and then was like "haha I am so punny". It wasn't a huge issue, but it was something I think an editor should have asked about. Also also, the book takes place over the course of several weeks/months, per the characters' own statements, but it definitely doesn't read like that. If you told me it took place over the course of 1-2 weeks, that seemed much more plausible. Minor quibbles, tho.
I wouldn't say this book ends with a cliffhanger, but it's definitely not a completed story. Florence is clearly just coming into her own; Ari has a backstory that was deftly hinted at but not completely explained; I would not be surprised if Cvareh ended up having some secrets as well. Also, despite being in the title, the Alchemists don't show up until almost the end of the story.
It was, however, extremely compelling to listen to, and I really liked the characters. It was new and interesting and quite different than most of the other stuff that gets published, trying to be "the next Twilight" or "the next Harry Potter". It's closest in tone to Philip Reeve's Fever Crumb books, in my opinion, which have a similar theme of guilds of engineers and a race of those who believe themselves superior and a main character who's more than she seems (of course she is! she's the main character, that's how these things work).
Will I listen to or read the sequel? Maybe. I think I'd be more likely to read it rather than listen to it, as this audiobook was a whopping 10+ hours long, which was a little too long for my tastes. I prefer to get through stories more quickly! I did like the author, and will look for more by her.