jasmyn9's review
2.0
I’m not sure where to start with this one – probably because I was very lost at the beginning. I thought that perhaps I had picked up a second in a series, but I could find no reference to a first book anywhere. The book in a nutshell is vampires meet cyperspace, but this isn’t clear at first.
The Eternals are somehow “chosen” to become immortal in a non-aging sense. People can link to cyberspace by hooking up with a cord coming out of their head which seems to be connected to microchips they have had implanted in their brain. Ok – so far I’m following, but then come the strange references to levels and ranks in the cyberworld with no real explanation of what they mean.
Now, if you take the Eternals and the cyberworld somewhat out of the equation, the realtionships between the people are fascinating. The story revolves around a father, mother, and son. The parents are both Eternals and are trying to find a way to “infect” their son as well. They travel to the ends of the known universe (literally) to try and find this virus. However, beyond this the relationship was rather odd. Perhaps as a result of being so virtual based, the family’s responses to each other seemed overly strained and impersonal.
2/5
The Eternals are somehow “chosen” to become immortal in a non-aging sense. People can link to cyberspace by hooking up with a cord coming out of their head which seems to be connected to microchips they have had implanted in their brain. Ok – so far I’m following, but then come the strange references to levels and ranks in the cyberworld with no real explanation of what they mean.
Now, if you take the Eternals and the cyberworld somewhat out of the equation, the realtionships between the people are fascinating. The story revolves around a father, mother, and son. The parents are both Eternals and are trying to find a way to “infect” their son as well. They travel to the ends of the known universe (literally) to try and find this virus. However, beyond this the relationship was rather odd. Perhaps as a result of being so virtual based, the family’s responses to each other seemed overly strained and impersonal.
2/5
lunar_rhythm6's review
1.0
I... can't even.
This book, not only confused and baffled me, but infuriated me as well. Neither of those things are particularly difficult, but still. I was very excited to read this book because, as others have said, the premise was very interesting. The execution could not have gone more wrong.
The Writing:
The first thing you notice is that this book throws you into a world with jargon galore. Not always a bad thing, but there's no information that is provided to you and actually explained. You eventually get the gist, but for me, not explaining anything doesn't help your novel; not explaining anything makes your novel infuriating. I don't know why it's called a V-Net. I don't know why it's called The Beast. I don't know why it is the way that it is or what purpose it originally served other than it's probably the evolution of our current Internet. That's great and all, but how did it evolve this way? To what end?
In between the jargon, you get really outdated dialogue. There are so many instances in which I would stop in my head and go, 'No one would fucking say that... Humans don't speak this way. This is the fucking future... Why are they speaking this way?" I said it so many times. There's one example that sticks out in my mind: the non-ironic or funny usage of the word 'spooky'. I have never heard someone use this word when they weren't trying to be funny or stupid. This character used the word completely seriously as a way to explain someone's behaviour. What?
The dialogue is wooden and doesn't reflect how normal people do speak or would speak in this futuristic--yet entirely unchanged-- world. The outdated language and horrible back and forth between the characters is confusing, annoying, and most importantly not how actual people speak. I know I've made this point, but seriously none of the characters actually mattered to me because they didn't speak like humans or act like humans. Was this novel about humans? I don't know. Don't ask me.
The Characters:
Oh boy. If the dialogue was wooden, the characters were downright inanimate. Zachariah is the only one that mostly made sense but even then, towards the end, what? I get that he loses his memory, but when did this romance with Helena even start? Why are they kissing? There was literally no development there and then he just goes back to banging his wife in a cabin. Okay... ?
Mia is made out to be this bad-ass chi-harnessing wife who will do anything for her husband and son... except her son. She would rather fuck her husband than make sure her son is okay. Zachariah at least sticks to the script; everything he does is for Rix. Mia? "Rix will be fine. Just stay here and fuck me!" (Not verbatim, but close enough). Mia isn't human either because her husband is glaringly more important to her than her son is for the ENTIRE novel. I'm not even exaggerating. She asks more about how her husband is doing than how her son is doing. I almost wish I had counted. Also, she also contributes next to nothing as far as getting Rix the very thing this entire novel is about. Literally, her role is to follow her husband around like a bitch in heat, forgetting entirely about her son.
Rix is annoying because half of the time I think he's a teenager and half of the time I think he is more like eight. This is not to mention that he fucks his aunt. "But, I mean technically, she's a clone..." Yes, of his fucking aunt. Meaning his aunt and this clone share some, if not all, of the same DNA. So, in his head, he's always thinking about how badly he wants to get with this chick KNOWING she's essentially his aunt. I get that incest is a fetish to some, but no. I'm sorry, making her a clone doesn't make it okay.
Rix constantly contradicts himself as if he forgets that he did or said something a few paragraphs ago and does the exact opposite. He compares his aunt-clone to a prison guard only to hug her and comfort her a few minutes later. He doesn't want to crash and burn right at the start going on his motorcycle, but literally a page later he says to himself: 'Far better to crash and burn early...' What? Do you even know what is going on? He becomes overly familiar with strangers and doesn't act like a teenager except in the sense that he apparently wants to fuck everything including his aunt.
Little Nit-Picky Qualms:
I have one petty complaint and one not-so-petty complaint. My petty complaint is that I despise when novels are set in other worlds and they use ridiculously ordinary names or names that would either modified to the point of non-recognition or not in use. As a friend pointed out to me, 'Thousands of years ago we had "John"' Well, no actually we had the Greek form of the name and it changed and now it's not the same. I get that you tried with Rix, but Jimmy and Zachariah? Zachariah wasn't even a popular name when this was published. It's not now several years later and I doubt it's going to make a come-back. So, nice try but I wish authors would stop doing this.
My not-so-petty complaint is that on pg. 198 (I remembered because it filled me with such rage that I haven't stopped ranting about it) from a publisher whose initials stand for "Entertainment. CULTURE. Writing." there is a word that boils my blood. manyana Now, when reading this I was confused and I didn't recognize the word even though I can read Spanish and that was what this place was supposed to speak primarily (I think...So hard to tell, really). Then I stared at the word. manyana I still didn't get it. I sounded it out and it clicked and so did my fury. Did you seriously spell mañana with a fucking 'y'? Needless to say, I was insulted and angry that so little research was put into this (a simple Google search, man) and that NO ONE FUCKING CAUGHT THIS! Not the editor, not the publisher, not the beta-readers... No one. What the actual fuck?
Conclusion:
I am disappointed that I bought this book as I was looking forward to it and it was not only confusing but a huge let down. It had a lot of potential but it was squandered in so many ways. I don't usually like to be so harsh in my reviews and I try to find at least something that the author did well, but I literally couldn't think of anything as I slogged through the ending and prepared myself for this review.
Good luck to whoever picks this up.
This book, not only confused and baffled me, but infuriated me as well. Neither of those things are particularly difficult, but still. I was very excited to read this book because, as others have said, the premise was very interesting. The execution could not have gone more wrong.
The Writing:
The first thing you notice is that this book throws you into a world with jargon galore. Not always a bad thing, but there's no information that is provided to you and actually explained. You eventually get the gist, but for me, not explaining anything doesn't help your novel; not explaining anything makes your novel infuriating. I don't know why it's called a V-Net. I don't know why it's called The Beast. I don't know why it is the way that it is or what purpose it originally served other than it's probably the evolution of our current Internet. That's great and all, but how did it evolve this way? To what end?
In between the jargon, you get really outdated dialogue. There are so many instances in which I would stop in my head and go, 'No one would fucking say that... Humans don't speak this way. This is the fucking future... Why are they speaking this way?" I said it so many times. There's one example that sticks out in my mind: the non-ironic or funny usage of the word 'spooky'. I have never heard someone use this word when they weren't trying to be funny or stupid. This character used the word completely seriously as a way to explain someone's behaviour. What?
The dialogue is wooden and doesn't reflect how normal people do speak or would speak in this futuristic--yet entirely unchanged-- world. The outdated language and horrible back and forth between the characters is confusing, annoying, and most importantly not how actual people speak. I know I've made this point, but seriously none of the characters actually mattered to me because they didn't speak like humans or act like humans. Was this novel about humans? I don't know. Don't ask me.
The Characters:
Oh boy. If the dialogue was wooden, the characters were downright inanimate. Zachariah is the only one that mostly made sense but even then, towards the end, what? I get that he loses his memory, but when did this romance with Helena even start? Why are they kissing? There was literally no development there and then he just goes back to banging his wife in a cabin. Okay... ?
Mia is made out to be this bad-ass chi-harnessing wife who will do anything for her husband and son... except her son. She would rather fuck her husband than make sure her son is okay. Zachariah at least sticks to the script; everything he does is for Rix. Mia? "Rix will be fine. Just stay here and fuck me!" (Not verbatim, but close enough). Mia isn't human either because her husband is glaringly more important to her than her son is for the ENTIRE novel. I'm not even exaggerating. She asks more about how her husband is doing than how her son is doing. I almost wish I had counted. Also, she also contributes next to nothing as far as getting Rix the very thing this entire novel is about. Literally, her role is to follow her husband around like a bitch in heat, forgetting entirely about her son.
Rix is annoying because half of the time I think he's a teenager and half of the time I think he is more like eight. This is not to mention that he fucks his aunt. "But, I mean technically, she's a clone..." Yes, of his fucking aunt. Meaning his aunt and this clone share some, if not all, of the same DNA. So, in his head, he's always thinking about how badly he wants to get with this chick KNOWING she's essentially his aunt. I get that incest is a fetish to some, but no. I'm sorry, making her a clone doesn't make it okay.
Rix constantly contradicts himself as if he forgets that he did or said something a few paragraphs ago and does the exact opposite. He compares his aunt-clone to a prison guard only to hug her and comfort her a few minutes later. He doesn't want to crash and burn right at the start going on his motorcycle, but literally a page later he says to himself: 'Far better to crash and burn early...' What? Do you even know what is going on? He becomes overly familiar with strangers and doesn't act like a teenager except in the sense that he apparently wants to fuck everything including his aunt.
Little Nit-Picky Qualms:
I have one petty complaint and one not-so-petty complaint. My petty complaint is that I despise when novels are set in other worlds and they use ridiculously ordinary names or names that would either modified to the point of non-recognition or not in use. As a friend pointed out to me, 'Thousands of years ago we had "John"' Well, no actually we had the Greek form of the name and it changed and now it's not the same. I get that you tried with Rix, but Jimmy and Zachariah? Zachariah wasn't even a popular name when this was published. It's not now several years later and I doubt it's going to make a come-back. So, nice try but I wish authors would stop doing this.
My not-so-petty complaint is that on pg. 198 (I remembered because it filled me with such rage that I haven't stopped ranting about it) from a publisher whose initials stand for "Entertainment. CULTURE. Writing." there is a word that boils my blood. manyana Now, when reading this I was confused and I didn't recognize the word even though I can read Spanish and that was what this place was supposed to speak primarily (I think...So hard to tell, really). Then I stared at the word. manyana I still didn't get it. I sounded it out and it clicked and so did my fury. Did you seriously spell mañana with a fucking 'y'? Needless to say, I was insulted and angry that so little research was put into this (a simple Google search, man) and that NO ONE FUCKING CAUGHT THIS! Not the editor, not the publisher, not the beta-readers... No one. What the actual fuck?
Conclusion:
I am disappointed that I bought this book as I was looking forward to it and it was not only confusing but a huge let down. It had a lot of potential but it was squandered in so many ways. I don't usually like to be so harsh in my reviews and I try to find at least something that the author did well, but I literally couldn't think of anything as I slogged through the ending and prepared myself for this review.
Good luck to whoever picks this up.
nogenreleftbehind's review
2.0
I’m not sure where to start with this one – probably because I was very lost at the beginning. I thought that perhaps I had picked up a second in a series, but I could find no reference to a first book anywhere. The book in a nutshell is vampires meet cyperspace, but this isn’t clear at first.
The Eternals are somehow “chosen” to become immortal in a non-aging sense. People can link to cyberspace by hooking up with a cord coming out of their head which seems to be connected to microchips they have had implanted in their brain. Ok – so far I’m following, but then come the strange references to levels and ranks in the cyberworld with no real explanation of what they mean.
Now, if you take the Eternals and the cyberworld somewhat out of the equation, the realtionships between the people are fascinating. The story revolves around a father, mother, and son. The parents are both Eternals and are trying to find a way to “infect” their son as well. They travel to the ends of the known universe (literally) to try and find this virus. However, beyond this the relationship was rather odd. Perhaps as a result of being so virtual based, the family’s responses to each other seemed overly strained and impersonal.
2/5
The Eternals are somehow “chosen” to become immortal in a non-aging sense. People can link to cyberspace by hooking up with a cord coming out of their head which seems to be connected to microchips they have had implanted in their brain. Ok – so far I’m following, but then come the strange references to levels and ranks in the cyberworld with no real explanation of what they mean.
Now, if you take the Eternals and the cyberworld somewhat out of the equation, the realtionships between the people are fascinating. The story revolves around a father, mother, and son. The parents are both Eternals and are trying to find a way to “infect” their son as well. They travel to the ends of the known universe (literally) to try and find this virus. However, beyond this the relationship was rather odd. Perhaps as a result of being so virtual based, the family’s responses to each other seemed overly strained and impersonal.
2/5
aomdoa's review
adventurous
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
2.0
Meh. The concepts in the book were very much the type of things I enjoy reading about but it just seemed all over from my perspective.
ms_m's review
2.0
This book was really confusing. Being one of three books I had to use google to discover which of the three is the first one in the trilogy. It seemed there was never a wrap up to the continuous things that pop up. Vampires meet cyberpunk with some sci-fi thrown in for spice. Out of curiosity I will read the other two books
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