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sarahetc's review against another edition
3.0
A decent enough premise, but the characters are thinly drawn and the ending is boring. Not sure I'll get to the sequels. If anybody wants this, let me know and I'll mail it to you.
nizharu's review against another edition
I'm not gonna lie, this is a book that I am never, ever going to read.
Why, because when in 1999 saw this cover and read a meagre review, I fell in love.
Mind you, it was 1999, and importing books was impossible for me, it was never published in my country either, so never read it.
But the cover stayed with me, and the romance too, My imagination flew, and I fell in love with how the book should be as my mind envisioned it, the writer I am now is because of the original cover of this book, and for that, I'm forever grateful.
But as you see, this is a book I would never read, for I know a bit of what under those covers entails and I don't like it, at all.
Mark Chadbourn forgive me, but even the most beautiful prose in this world can best the wild imagination and the romance of a little child who felt the hype for the first time of an object unattainable.
I hope you understand, is not like you're gonna end up reading this, but, thank you.
Why, because when in 1999 saw this cover and read a meagre review, I fell in love.
Mind you, it was 1999, and importing books was impossible for me, it was never published in my country either, so never read it.
But the cover stayed with me, and the romance too, My imagination flew, and I fell in love with how the book should be as my mind envisioned it, the writer I am now is because of the original cover of this book, and for that, I'm forever grateful.
But as you see, this is a book I would never read, for I know a bit of what under those covers entails and I don't like it, at all.
Mark Chadbourn forgive me, but even the most beautiful prose in this world can best the wild imagination and the romance of a little child who felt the hype for the first time of an object unattainable.
I hope you understand, is not like you're gonna end up reading this, but, thank you.
kathydavie's review against another edition
5.0
Scary...if you like technology...this is your nightmare come true!
Good! Wow! Gave me nightmares…what can I say, I’m a technophile and the concept Chadbourn is pushing is too scary for someone like me!
Good! Wow! Gave me nightmares…what can I say, I’m a technophile and the concept Chadbourn is pushing is too scary for someone like me!
welktickler's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
A missed opportunity. Someone who cant write well got a good idea and someone published it without properly editing it. Almost DNF but managed to finish it.
jesslynh's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the book enough to get the second in the series, but the characters don't seem able to EVER learn from their mistakes and act like they've never heard of magic before. I'm having a hard time relating to them
kim_brockway_gatehouse's review against another edition
4.0
I was up until 2am finishing this book so forgive me if my review is posted later...
ciara__reads's review against another edition
4.0
This is the sort of book which is best gone into with little knowledge surrounding the plot of the book. It slowly tantalisingly provides small bits of information while you are sat there severally confused about what is going on.
It took a while to get into granted and there were a few points in the book which felt like it was trying a little bit to hard to be edgy (all I’m going to say is broomstick scene). But once the book got going and you had a bit more of an idea what was going on it became an addictive read.
The main characters were an interesting polarising bunch, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
It took a while to get into granted and there were a few points in the book which felt like it was trying a little bit to hard to be edgy (all I’m going to say is broomstick scene). But once the book got going and you had a bit more of an idea what was going on it became an addictive read.
The main characters were an interesting polarising bunch, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
glimnore's review against another edition
3.0
You know, it took me like eight months since I started reading this book to finish it. I stopped roughly half-way at some point and was all like: "Oh gawd, its going to be Dawnthief all over again." Well I continued after a while. And lo and behold, it was in fact like Dawnthief all over again. At least I finished this one....
Characters (3/5)
Shavi is the winning grace of this novel. Because he is freaking cool. He isn't even the main character and his presence doesn't exist until half-way through the book. Veitch started off as interesting and then became more of an annoyance. Tom was always an annoyance. Laura....why the hell hasn't her character developed, even after all of the sh*t she had to go through?!?! WTF.
Oh and Ruth. Lol. Don't even get me started on Ruth.
But then there is Church. The gary stu of this book. Of course his life can't all be perfect! He must have a dark and debilitating past! (IN ORDER TO BECOME THE HERO GOTHAM NEEDS!) No. No I say. Church 'finds' an 'inner hero' of sorts. And yet, it doesn't do anything of importance.
World (3/5)
I see what Chadbourn did here. Its almost Lovecraftian, the descriptions/lack thereof regarding the Fomori. Underline almost. Nothing is ever fully described or detailed. The mythos is so incredibly verbose and complex (Which I do applaud!) but the fun of it all gets lost in random narration, which is overly tedious for me to care about when all I want is for the plot to progress.
Prose (2/5)
I put this book down the first time because it was heady, intense and overly saturated with meaningless descriptions that overloaded the brain. I picked it up. And only then after re familiarizing myself with the way Chadbourn goes about his life did I manage to pick up my reading speed with this novel. Painfully slow, but I managed to chunk through the viscous swamp of adjectives.
Pacing (2/5)
It could have been better. It should have been better. If the pacing was better than the book could have been much better. But it wasn't.
Plot (3/5)
There was a line once uttered through in the novel. A literary device of great renown, one I find incredibly fascinating. "Deus ex Machina", which pretty much sums up all the solutions. The premise was interesting, I'll give him that. But I felt as if Chadbourn failed to deliver.
All in all....
3+3+2+3+2=13/25 = .52*5 = 2.6
Which rounds to 3....
And yet, I'll be giving the second one a go.
Characters (3/5)
Shavi is the winning grace of this novel. Because he is freaking cool. He isn't even the main character and his presence doesn't exist until half-way through the book. Veitch started off as interesting and then became more of an annoyance. Tom was always an annoyance. Laura....why the hell hasn't her character developed, even after all of the sh*t she had to go through?!?! WTF.
Oh and Ruth. Lol. Don't even get me started on Ruth.
But then there is Church. The gary stu of this book. Of course his life can't all be perfect! He must have a dark and debilitating past! (IN ORDER TO BECOME THE HERO GOTHAM NEEDS!) No. No I say. Church 'finds' an 'inner hero' of sorts. And yet, it doesn't do anything of importance.
World (3/5)
I see what Chadbourn did here. Its almost Lovecraftian, the descriptions/lack thereof regarding the Fomori. Underline almost. Nothing is ever fully described or detailed. The mythos is so incredibly verbose and complex (Which I do applaud!) but the fun of it all gets lost in random narration, which is overly tedious for me to care about when all I want is for the plot to progress.
Prose (2/5)
I put this book down the first time because it was heady, intense and overly saturated with meaningless descriptions that overloaded the brain. I picked it up. And only then after re familiarizing myself with the way Chadbourn goes about his life did I manage to pick up my reading speed with this novel. Painfully slow, but I managed to chunk through the viscous swamp of adjectives.
Pacing (2/5)
It could have been better. It should have been better. If the pacing was better than the book could have been much better. But it wasn't.
Plot (3/5)
There was a line once uttered through in the novel. A literary device of great renown, one I find incredibly fascinating. "Deus ex Machina", which pretty much sums up all the solutions. The premise was interesting, I'll give him that. But I felt as if Chadbourn failed to deliver.
All in all....
3+3+2+3+2=13/25 = .52*5 = 2.6
Which rounds to 3....
And yet, I'll be giving the second one a go.
lazarusreads's review against another edition
4.0
I remember first reading this book over 10 years ago and loving it. I find that having read a lot more books since then that I found the pacing a little slow, but still really enjoyed it. Once the story takes off, the action and character development kept me wanting to know more and more. The more I read I couldn’t stop.