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A review by leigh_darling
Queen & Commander by Janine A. Southard
4.0
**Spoiler free review**
I went in to this book with very high expectations as it is right up my alley and for the most part, I was rewarded. This is the first book in what is promised to be a series and as such, fulfils all of those requirements. It lays all of the foundation for the coming sweeping space opera in the best possible way, explaining details with only occasional lecturing tone. I made it through about the first third of the story nodding and along for the ride, questioning very little.
What I did question was the interjection of Welsh in to the text, albeit an infrequent injection. For me, I am familiar with Welsh so I was able to ‘say’ the words in my head for the most part and I am more than willing to just gloss over the ones I can’t. I’m flexible like that. Welsh is a hard language and that could deter people which would be a shame since this is actually a really promising story.
Back to when I stopped being along for the ride. There comes a point in the plot where you can see that this entire affair is going to implode in the worst possible way and you are powerless to stop it. I hit that point and then was more than along for the ride, I was committed to the story, to the character and to their plight. How could they ever fix this? To me, an outsider, the solution was pretty obvious but the characters…
They are flawed like actual people and that makes them both hard to read and easy to relate to. Too often, writers ‘fix’ their characters early on and it makes the subsequent stories feel like The Mildly Difficult Adventures of Perfect People. I’m glad that this novel didn’t go that route and frustrated as well which is actually a very good thing. All in all
I went in to this book with very high expectations as it is right up my alley and for the most part, I was rewarded. This is the first book in what is promised to be a series and as such, fulfils all of those requirements. It lays all of the foundation for the coming sweeping space opera in the best possible way, explaining details with only occasional lecturing tone. I made it through about the first third of the story nodding and along for the ride, questioning very little.
What I did question was the interjection of Welsh in to the text, albeit an infrequent injection. For me, I am familiar with Welsh so I was able to ‘say’ the words in my head for the most part and I am more than willing to just gloss over the ones I can’t. I’m flexible like that. Welsh is a hard language and that could deter people which would be a shame since this is actually a really promising story.
Back to when I stopped being along for the ride. There comes a point in the plot where you can see that this entire affair is going to implode in the worst possible way and you are powerless to stop it. I hit that point and then was more than along for the ride, I was committed to the story, to the character and to their plight. How could they ever fix this? To me, an outsider, the solution was pretty obvious but the characters…
They are flawed like actual people and that makes them both hard to read and easy to relate to. Too often, writers ‘fix’ their characters early on and it makes the subsequent stories feel like The Mildly Difficult Adventures of Perfect People. I’m glad that this novel didn’t go that route and frustrated as well which is actually a very good thing. All in all