A review by secre
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 145, by Ian McDonald, Neil Clarke, Anna Wu, Finbarr O'Reilly, Suzanne Palmer, Simone Heller, Aliette de Bodard, Yilin Wang
2.0
Review: When We Were Starless
A sacrifice was made here - one of depth for consiseness. Whilst there is a lot to like here, none of it is explored in depth, instead everything is skimmed over and you have to fill in the missing pieces yourself. I can't help bit feel that this would have been much better if it had been unpacked more. Far more detail could have been given on what happened to the planet, why the lizard race are the nomadic survivors amongst other world building aspects. Characters could have been far further expanded and whilst I enjoyed the relationship between Mink and Orion, everything else seemed two dimensional.
Essentially, a lot of potential let down by the format this is written in.
A sacrifice was made here - one of depth for consiseness. Whilst there is a lot to like here, none of it is explored in depth, instead everything is skimmed over and you have to fill in the missing pieces yourself. I can't help bit feel that this would have been much better if it had been unpacked more. Far more detail could have been given on what happened to the planet, why the lizard race are the nomadic survivors amongst other world building aspects. Characters could have been far further expanded and whilst I enjoyed the relationship between Mink and Orion, everything else seemed two dimensional.
Essentially, a lot of potential let down by the format this is written in.