itabar's review
1.0
This was in the Hugo packet for Campbell nominee so I tried, but .. the Eight deadly words. DNF. Life is too short.
a_boy_c's review
3.0
I liked the pacing of the book and I found the setting / characters to be interesting and unique. Overall, I think it works as a holiday / commute read but falls a bit short of hitting hugo award levels. I've taken off a few stars for 2 main reasons:
1) A number of times the author referenced 21st century items which didn't fit at all with the setting (set hundreds of years in the future with no mention of earth). Why would there be cars or soft drinks? For such an otherwordly space opera, I found these references took me out of the world Brian was building.
2) Because of the fast pacing, things felt confusing at times and some things about the world building didn't make sense. It would have been nice if the author spent a bit more time with elaborating on the universe as well as all the theology and especially on how the 9 circles of hell worked. It just seemed the internal logic seemed to be bounce back and forth.. not to mention the fact that the book went back and forth between normal space adventure and supernatural horror story.
1) A number of times the author referenced 21st century items which didn't fit at all with the setting (set hundreds of years in the future with no mention of earth). Why would there be cars or soft drinks? For such an otherwordly space opera, I found these references took me out of the world Brian was building.
2) Because of the fast pacing, things felt confusing at times and some things about the world building didn't make sense. It would have been nice if the author spent a bit more time with elaborating on the universe as well as all the theology and especially on how the 9 circles of hell worked. It just seemed the internal logic seemed to be bounce back and forth.. not to mention the fact that the book went back and forth between normal space adventure and supernatural horror story.
nwhyte's review
1.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2675237.html
I lost patience with the novel within the first hundred pages, an astonishingly dull mixture of magic, sf and combat.
I lost patience with the novel within the first hundred pages, an astonishingly dull mixture of magic, sf and combat.
hevs's review
3.0
I honestly don't know how to rate this book. 3/5 is only because it's kinda in the middle. "Nethereal" is weird. And I mean WEIRD. In a really good sense. When it comes to worldbuilding it is wonderfully weird. Sadly it is also painfully bad at other places. I believed without hesitation when Neimeier said that one characters girlfriend is his best friend’s father. It is still horribly bad fiction, though.
I am rather sure it was written as a NaNoWriMo novel and then nobody read it before publication. It was proofread but not edited. The worldbuilding and the sole beginning of this story is mind-blowingly good, even if it is mixed with rather pulpish set of characters and plot. It works because technofantasy space-opera setting is awesome and pulpish adventure stories are great reads even if they're not very good literature. When it gets super-weird and characters travel to hell - it's still good in worldbuilding department but plot... well, I guess it ran away. Characters go from one point to the other, meeting people, running from bad guy, and then again and again. Author is an RPG game master and I think that may be the reason of this repetitiveness. It gets better later on but in the middle I really felt like not finishing and I didn't finish only few books in my whole life.
I really like how there's no romance between two main characters and how even author is making fun of obvious assumptions both readers and other characters make. (The fact that not being attracted to someone and not being interested in sex in general is portrayed as a rather selfish gesture pissed me off though). In many places I felt like author known perfectly well why someone did that or said something but he couldn’t be bothered to tell me – or maybe he cut off some material but I highly doubt it. Many times characters were pissed off on one another or something and I really had no idea why.
All-in-all it would be very good as something you could read in the internet on some writers forum or something and I think author has potential but now he is so not on a publication level. He wasn’t able to edit this to the point it would just lack professional editing so – there’s long way before him and I hope he’ll work hard on himself because if he does he’ll be writing really good books in a few years.
I do recommend “Nethereal” to everyone who like weird settings and techno-fantasy AND is not afraid of bad literature.
There’s a second book in this cycle but honestly I don’t think I’ll read this one. In a way I want to but I am seriously afraid that I’ll just waste a lot of time.
Setting: 5/5, really. The sole physics of this world is great, the institutions are great, the way hell is related to the world – all awesome.
Writing: To accuse Neimeier of having any kind of style would be absurd. At some point it was transparent and others painfully dull. Words were conveying the meaning but had no artistic function whatsoever.
Plot: 2/5. Jaren’s vengeance was ok but for the most of the time characters were moving from place to place and doing whatever author had thrown before them. RPG and novels are two entirely different ways of storytelling and Neimeier failed to realize that. I felt like he was planning as he go and honestly – there’s nothing bad in that, you just need to sit on your ass and EDIT stuff afterwards to make it look as if you had a perfect plan from the very beginning – which he didn’t.
3/5 because it would be unfair to give it one star (SETTING <3) and also wrong to give it 5/5 (sad excuse of a plot and writing) – but I honestly don’t know how to rate “Nethereal”. It’s just not on the publishing level, that’s all.
Ps. If anyone can recommend me similar books – technofantasy preferably in space – please do.
I am rather sure it was written as a NaNoWriMo novel and then nobody read it before publication. It was proofread but not edited. The worldbuilding and the sole beginning of this story is mind-blowingly good, even if it is mixed with rather pulpish set of characters and plot. It works because technofantasy space-opera setting is awesome and pulpish adventure stories are great reads even if they're not very good literature. When it gets super-weird and characters travel to hell - it's still good in worldbuilding department but plot... well, I guess it ran away. Characters go from one point to the other, meeting people, running from bad guy, and then again and again. Author is an RPG game master and I think that may be the reason of this repetitiveness. It gets better later on but in the middle I really felt like not finishing and I didn't finish only few books in my whole life.
I really like how there's no romance between two main characters and how even author is making fun of obvious assumptions both readers and other characters make. (The fact that not being attracted to someone and not being interested in sex in general is portrayed as a rather selfish gesture pissed me off though). In many places I felt like author known perfectly well why someone did that or said something but he couldn’t be bothered to tell me – or maybe he cut off some material but I highly doubt it. Many times characters were pissed off on one another or something and I really had no idea why.
All-in-all it would be very good as something you could read in the internet on some writers forum or something and I think author has potential but now he is so not on a publication level. He wasn’t able to edit this to the point it would just lack professional editing so – there’s long way before him and I hope he’ll work hard on himself because if he does he’ll be writing really good books in a few years.
I do recommend “Nethereal” to everyone who like weird settings and techno-fantasy AND is not afraid of bad literature.
There’s a second book in this cycle but honestly I don’t think I’ll read this one. In a way I want to but I am seriously afraid that I’ll just waste a lot of time.
Setting: 5/5, really. The sole physics of this world is great, the institutions are great, the way hell is related to the world – all awesome.
Writing: To accuse Neimeier of having any kind of style would be absurd. At some point it was transparent and others painfully dull. Words were conveying the meaning but had no artistic function whatsoever.
Plot: 2/5. Jaren’s vengeance was ok but for the most of the time characters were moving from place to place and doing whatever author had thrown before them. RPG and novels are two entirely different ways of storytelling and Neimeier failed to realize that. I felt like he was planning as he go and honestly – there’s nothing bad in that, you just need to sit on your ass and EDIT stuff afterwards to make it look as if you had a perfect plan from the very beginning – which he didn’t.
3/5 because it would be unfair to give it one star (SETTING <3) and also wrong to give it 5/5 (sad excuse of a plot and writing) – but I honestly don’t know how to rate “Nethereal”. It’s just not on the publishing level, that’s all.
Ps. If anyone can recommend me similar books – technofantasy preferably in space – please do.
morgandhu's review
1.0
When I'm reading a book I wouldn't ordinarily pick up on my own accord, I like to check out a few reviews first, so I know something of what I'm getting into. So before starting Campbell Award nominee Brian Niemeier's debut novel Nethereal, I looked for reviews and read a few. It was a little disturbing to note that the majority of reviews I located were written by people situated within one degree of internet separation from a Rabid Puppy. Nonetheless, I embarked on the novel.
There is a way to plunge right into the manners, politics, history and culture of a secondary world without leaving the reader with so many questions that the text is frustrating in its opaqueness. Good science fiction and fantasy writers do it all the time, dropping just enough clues, giving just enough exposition, that the story and the characters' actions make sense. Neimeier, unfortunately, does not do this.
In addition to being frustrated and confused, this lack of incluing [1] left me feeling very little interest in the fates and fortunes of the characters.
I gave the novel a decent chance to grab me - but by the time I'd read ten percent, I was still uninterested and unimpressed. And I certainly would not consider an author for a Campbell award on the strength of it.
[1] Incluing is a technique for world building, in which the reader is gradually exposed to background information about the world in which a story is set. The idea is to clue the readers into the world the writer is building, without them being aware of it. http://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/Incluing
There is a way to plunge right into the manners, politics, history and culture of a secondary world without leaving the reader with so many questions that the text is frustrating in its opaqueness. Good science fiction and fantasy writers do it all the time, dropping just enough clues, giving just enough exposition, that the story and the characters' actions make sense. Neimeier, unfortunately, does not do this.
In addition to being frustrated and confused, this lack of incluing [1] left me feeling very little interest in the fates and fortunes of the characters.
I gave the novel a decent chance to grab me - but by the time I'd read ten percent, I was still uninterested and unimpressed. And I certainly would not consider an author for a Campbell award on the strength of it.
[1] Incluing is a technique for world building, in which the reader is gradually exposed to background information about the world in which a story is set. The idea is to clue the readers into the world the writer is building, without them being aware of it. http://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/Incluing
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