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A review by duchess
Crossover by Joel Shepherd
2.0
Overall, the story of Crossover isn't bad at all. A couple irritating things have justified the 2-star rating for me though:
First, the author has some bizarre fetish for sentence fragments. Why?!?!! I don't know why this writing style is a thing, because it makes everything choppy & weird. I can only imagine that the original drafts for this book were all underlined green in Word.
The fragmented writing style in turn affected the fight and action scenes for me. The action didn't flow easily, and this made complex scenes a swamp of unnecessary periods and unclear tactics.
Secondly, while I do appreciate reading about an android's 'human' characteristics, I'm not sure why the author couldn't give Cassandra more of a personality outside being a nymphomaniac... Every other page has Cassandra decrying her love of fucking, and there's literally no reason for it. It doesn't impact the plot, doesn't improve Cassandra's characterization, and just gets downright weird. When Mahud is introduced, Cassandra seems to finally develop some other interests outside hunting down her next orgasm, but this doesn't happen until the final third of the book. Honestly, I'd forgive people for thinking Cassandra was a sexbot that occasionally handled weaponry.
Another minor irritant was the constant emphasis on a character's Earth-based cultural and/or racial background. I get that the Federation, one of two distinct warring factions of the interstellar human population, is the pro-Earth faction, but this book supposedly takes place many, many years after humanity had gone to the stars so I'm not sure why people would not have moved on from using Earth-based cultural tropes when describing each other?? But okay whatever.
ALL THAT SAID, I did like the conspiracy & moral questions raised. If I didn't have the next 2 books on my iPad already, I likely would put off following-up with this series, but what the hell might as well. Maybe the writing will be better? (unlikely tbh)
First, the author has some bizarre fetish for sentence fragments. Why?!?!! I don't know why this writing style is a thing, because it makes everything choppy & weird. I can only imagine that the original drafts for this book were all underlined green in Word.
The fragmented writing style in turn affected the fight and action scenes for me. The action didn't flow easily, and this made complex scenes a swamp of unnecessary periods and unclear tactics.
Secondly, while I do appreciate reading about an android's 'human' characteristics, I'm not sure why the author couldn't give Cassandra more of a personality outside being a nymphomaniac... Every other page has Cassandra decrying her love of fucking, and there's literally no reason for it. It doesn't impact the plot, doesn't improve Cassandra's characterization, and just gets downright weird. When Mahud is introduced, Cassandra seems to finally develop some other interests outside hunting down her next orgasm, but this doesn't happen until the final third of the book. Honestly, I'd forgive people for thinking Cassandra was a sexbot that occasionally handled weaponry.
Another minor irritant was the constant emphasis on a character's Earth-based cultural and/or racial background. I get that the Federation, one of two distinct warring factions of the interstellar human population, is the pro-Earth faction, but this book supposedly takes place many, many years after humanity had gone to the stars so I'm not sure why people would not have moved on from using Earth-based cultural tropes when describing each other?? But okay whatever.
ALL THAT SAID, I did like the conspiracy & moral questions raised. If I didn't have the next 2 books on my iPad already, I likely would put off following-up with this series, but what the hell might as well. Maybe the writing will be better? (unlikely tbh)