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A review by peter__b
The Caledonian Gambit by Dan Moren
1.0
Given the title, cover and blurb, I thought it was a safe bet this was a sci-fi book. However, given that the vast majority of the events could just as easily take place in any modern day action novel, the sci-fi tag is a bit misleading. The story supposedly takes place a couple of centuries in the future, where wormholes have already been figured out and used to colonize multiple solar systems. So the fact that almost every other technology seems to have remained virtually unchanged is a bit of a head-scratcher and I'd argue, bad sci-fi writing.
As for the characters, they're as generic as you're likely to come across and I'm already struggling to remember any distinguishing details for any of them. The protagonist was especially forgettable since his character arc was incredibly cliche while being a metaphorical puppet to every other character, despite the author's lame attempt to give him some agency towards the end. The secondary characters were somewhat more interesting, but with such a low bar, that wasn't very hard. The antagonist was at least fleshed out a bit and had believable motivations for what he did, but unfortunately, he ended up being predictable and underwhelming, much like the story itself.
The writing was very much on the amateurish side with this feeling every bit the debut novel it was. The pacing was on the slow side while the world building was basic and disappointing. The dialogue was cringy and took up way too much of the book at the expense of decent action sequences and meaningful character development. The attempts at humour fell flat for me and the quippy nature of the dialogue got old very quickly. The plot was formulaic and the twists felt underserved with the climax feeling especially forced, mostly because it started being a sci-fi book again after it had already cemented itself as a simple, contemporary caper.
Despite all those issues, I didn't actually hate this book and I'd even be hard pressed to say that I disliked it. Sure, it was boring and deserves the single star it's getting, but this would be a 1.5 if I could give half stars. It was perfectly in between ok and dislike. The main reason I couldn't justify the 2 stars though was the cop-out on the sci-fi aspects for the meat of the story. I just can't imagine recommending this to anyone, especially not sci-fi enthusiasts. The narration of the audiobook was also quite mediocre which made it a great sleep aid, but only passable as an audiobook.
As for the characters, they're as generic as you're likely to come across and I'm already struggling to remember any distinguishing details for any of them. The protagonist was especially forgettable since his character arc was incredibly cliche while being a metaphorical puppet to every other character, despite the author's lame attempt to give him some agency towards the end. The secondary characters were somewhat more interesting, but with such a low bar, that wasn't very hard. The antagonist was at least fleshed out a bit and had believable motivations for what he did, but unfortunately, he ended up being predictable and underwhelming, much like the story itself.
The writing was very much on the amateurish side with this feeling every bit the debut novel it was. The pacing was on the slow side while the world building was basic and disappointing. The dialogue was cringy and took up way too much of the book at the expense of decent action sequences and meaningful character development. The attempts at humour fell flat for me and the quippy nature of the dialogue got old very quickly. The plot was formulaic and the twists felt underserved with the climax feeling especially forced, mostly because it started being a sci-fi book again after it had already cemented itself as a simple, contemporary caper.
Despite all those issues, I didn't actually hate this book and I'd even be hard pressed to say that I disliked it. Sure, it was boring and deserves the single star it's getting, but this would be a 1.5 if I could give half stars. It was perfectly in between ok and dislike. The main reason I couldn't justify the 2 stars though was the cop-out on the sci-fi aspects for the meat of the story. I just can't imagine recommending this to anyone, especially not sci-fi enthusiasts. The narration of the audiobook was also quite mediocre which made it a great sleep aid, but only passable as an audiobook.