r_j_setser's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
irongold's review against another edition
4.0
Pretty good, some mechanical issues and a few info dumps and boring parts
djhobby's review against another edition
1.0
This review is for the whole series.
3 out of 10 stars.
I really tried to get into this series. I gave it a try, but I ended up not caring about any of the characters or their motivations and gave up reading 3/4 of the way through the 3rd book.
The writing really annoyed me. Every scene there is someone ignorant of their surroundings, and miraculously there is a character there to explain the situation. Cut to the next scene and repeat, and repeat and repeat...
I feel like these books were originally intended for young adults, but at the last minute some editor came in and said, "Let's not make a young adult fantasy, add in a lot of swearing and violence and we'll market it for everyone." Which I don't have a damn problem with when not feeling contrived.
This book checks off all the things I wanted in book, but didn't do any of it well.
3 out of 10 stars.
I really tried to get into this series. I gave it a try, but I ended up not caring about any of the characters or their motivations and gave up reading 3/4 of the way through the 3rd book.
The writing really annoyed me. Every scene there is someone ignorant of their surroundings, and miraculously there is a character there to explain the situation. Cut to the next scene and repeat, and repeat and repeat...
I feel like these books were originally intended for young adults, but at the last minute some editor came in and said, "Let's not make a young adult fantasy, add in a lot of swearing and violence and we'll market it for everyone." Which I don't have a damn problem with when not feeling contrived.
This book checks off all the things I wanted in book, but didn't do any of it well.
catladylover94's review against another edition
5.0
good first book, will have to download the second one soon
cthuwu's review against another edition
dnf @ 35% - i wanted to like this one SO MUCH!! it's steampunk fantasy, the monsters are just big ol' bugs, it's post apocalyptic, some of the gadgets and references have a definite fallout vibe but... there's no plot. i got 25% in before the first plot point happened. that a 1/4 of a book's worth of introductions and filler and no a whole lot else. it comes in at just shy of 300 pages so that's 75 pages of... nothing. i'm mad about it, too, because i feel like this world has so much potential for fun but i'm sitting at chapter fifteen and the main plot is barely off the ground :(
joe97's review against another edition
2.0
Didn't have much "steampunk" as I was expecting by the title. Not a bad story but I was looking forward to the tech which was not really there. So it was eh
joe97's review against another edition
2.0
Definitely better than the first but still seems to lack something to get me invested in the series. There's more technology introduced and the group does way more than what was accomplished in the first book.
sharknato's review
adventurous
dark
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
jdkc4d's review against another edition
4.0
Book 2 was short, and the plot was kind of meandering. Right when I thought I had the plot figured out, the book ended. so I guess that's the plot for book 3. Regardless, I like this series' use of mechanical stuff as well as the giant killer bugs. This book, book 2, was a lot more graphically violent I feel than book one was. It also got into some of the nitty gritty parts of the story. I really liked that. It seemed more real.
woolfardis's review against another edition
1.0
Read as part of the Get Through The Crap On Your Kindle You Stubborn Eejit reading challenge.
Ancora is a city perched in the mountains to protect its citizens from the monster far below. Jacob and Alice live in the slum area and witness daily raids by one or two of the smaller monsters: giant, swarming spiders that are getting more bold with every passing year.
The introduction to the premise of the novel was slow and boring and there was a distinct lack of atmosphere. Ancora, the city, sounds wonderful to explore and intriguing to think of, but we rarely do any of that. We do not explore much and the only descriptions we see to get are bland cobbled streets and rising mountains, with the obvious ramshackled houses and weird observatories. We visit the main characters families one by one in the hope that we might enjoy their plight more, and yet the dying father of one cannot even bring much hope of any sympathy. They're all as flat as the monsters will become once crushed.
There is a sliver of joy to be gotten from Charles, a simple-named inventor who knows all about the world before The War and whom apprentices Jacob in a classic father-son replacement service, acting as a kind of Merlin to his Arthur, but without any of the adventurous spirit of those stories. With Jacob, they tinker with steam-powered contraptions and experiment with pistons, bringing the steampunk world to this seemingly run-of-the-mill fantasy novel.
However, the steampunk elements feel too few and far between and they are not developed beyond "here is a steam-powered motorbike, watch them ride". It felt like an add-on and just a way to have conversation between the characters.
There are the obvious people who can kill huge monsters without any training and heroes who pop up to save the protagonists at the precise moment of peril. Love interests who are only there to be just that and the obvious tropes of any dungeons and dragonsesque story.
Ancora is a city perched in the mountains to protect its citizens from the monster far below. Jacob and Alice live in the slum area and witness daily raids by one or two of the smaller monsters: giant, swarming spiders that are getting more bold with every passing year.
The introduction to the premise of the novel was slow and boring and there was a distinct lack of atmosphere. Ancora, the city, sounds wonderful to explore and intriguing to think of, but we rarely do any of that. We do not explore much and the only descriptions we see to get are bland cobbled streets and rising mountains, with the obvious ramshackled houses and weird observatories. We visit the main characters families one by one in the hope that we might enjoy their plight more, and yet the dying father of one cannot even bring much hope of any sympathy. They're all as flat as the monsters will become once crushed.
There is a sliver of joy to be gotten from Charles, a simple-named inventor who knows all about the world before The War and whom apprentices Jacob in a classic father-son replacement service, acting as a kind of Merlin to his Arthur, but without any of the adventurous spirit of those stories. With Jacob, they tinker with steam-powered contraptions and experiment with pistons, bringing the steampunk world to this seemingly run-of-the-mill fantasy novel.
However, the steampunk elements feel too few and far between and they are not developed beyond "here is a steam-powered motorbike, watch them ride". It felt like an add-on and just a way to have conversation between the characters.
There are the obvious people who can kill huge monsters without any training and heroes who pop up to save the protagonists at the precise moment of peril. Love interests who are only there to be just that and the obvious tropes of any dungeons and dragonsesque story.