Reviews

Across the Dark Water, by Richard Kadrey

greatnate008's review

5.0

I really liked this short story. It was interesting that the main characters didn't have names. I wish there was more to it. Maybe there will be more stories that are set in this universe.

zuly's review

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

nathanaeljs's review

4.0

Dark, compelling short story about living in the aftermath of a futuristic society’s pandemic. The characterization is a bit thin and archetypal (complete with ye olde dead and/or missing girlfriend as motivation for the protagonist), but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

wisecraic's review

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

3.5

wandering_not_lost's review

2.0

[Read for free on the Tor.com site.] I liked some of the atmosphere here, but in the end there were too many things that left me scratching my head for me to really get into it. In particular, I had a hard time getting into the main character's head. I get that he's desperate and somewhat compromised, but he starts on his journey fairly underprepared, not asking seemingly reasonable questions of the guide about what he'll need. His reactions through the novella also seem a bit off, as if he's reacting in place of the reader, who hasn't been living in a post-apocalyptic hellworld. For someone who IS in a post-apocalyptic hellworld, some of his attitudes seem strangely, recklessly altruistic, as we don't know much about the thief's background and what his life has been like. Is he still relatively privileged? Is he living with some level of normalcy and this jump into the wasteland is new to him? It's not easy to tell, and thus he seems disconnected from the world around him. Also, the

Spoiler

biomechanical horror beasts

made a great plot device, but it was hard to see how any military would think that they were a good idea to make.

And finally, I didn't really feel the ending flowed from everything else.

Spoiler

There wasn't enough of the thief's or the Turk's background for me to tell if Mina's explanation about how she "helped" nudge him to her really made sense. His motivation to leave the city and seek out the Turk seemed totally organic to how miserable he was, not to something she was doing. And if she really wanted to kill the guide and bring the thief to her...why not just do it? Why not kill the guide with one of her mechanical hellbeasts and send Maggie and co to bring the thief to her in complete safety? And if the answer is "because she's insane", then that just makes the thief's easy belief of her story a sad letdown.

In the end, it just didn't gel for me.

librarianmage's review

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

4.5