A review by lilyn_g
Nomad by Matthew Mather
4.0
Nomad took a while to hook me. The first few chapters I was more or less “okay…where’s he going with this?” There’s this whole bad girl side story that takes precedence early on, and it just didn’t do it for me. However, eventually the story found it’s stride, and I found myself extremely interested. Yes, I snickered when the space baddie was revealed, but it definitely not one I’d seen in science fiction book before. (“The world has numbed to asteroids. I guess this was the logical step up.” – My aside to my partner.) More of a focus on the science beyond the apocalyptic element and less of a focus on the characters would have been preferable. I know for most people characters are king, but I feel like the personal drama distracts me from the ‘good stuff’ at times.
Even when it comes to books, I’m not a people person.
Anyways, the pacing felt slow at first, but soon Nomad picked up the steam. Towards the end of the book I couldn’t wait to figure out how the author was going to handle things. I was definitely on edge, and only mildly disappointed at the ending that he chose. It’s not that it wasn’t well done, because it was. It’s just that I have a destructive streak that doesn’t get fulfilled nearly often enough.
The main character, Jessica, is a former marine who is missing most of one leg. I did like the fact that she’s missing the leg actually figures into the story on more than one occasion. Mather doesn’t just do the token “oh look, my character has a disability – but here’s how we magically move past it!”. It hampers Jess, but there’s also this awesome scene with a leg-bat and a cheesy one liner that you just need to read. I also liked that even though she was a marine, she doesn’t fall into the stereotypical behavioral models often portrayed. I won’t say more for fear of ruining it.
The other characters were neither here nor there. Whilst they weren’t cardboard cutouts, they just weren’t people I could care about. I know that I was supposed to feel a sense of tenseness as they raced against time in more ways than one, but I didn’t. Instead I wanted them to get their personal problems dealt with so the author could get back to destroying the earth.
Overall, Nomad was a good read that would probably thrill character-driven readers a lot more than it did me.
Even when it comes to books, I’m not a people person.
Anyways, the pacing felt slow at first, but soon Nomad picked up the steam. Towards the end of the book I couldn’t wait to figure out how the author was going to handle things. I was definitely on edge, and only mildly disappointed at the ending that he chose. It’s not that it wasn’t well done, because it was. It’s just that I have a destructive streak that doesn’t get fulfilled nearly often enough.
The main character, Jessica, is a former marine who is missing most of one leg. I did like the fact that she’s missing the leg actually figures into the story on more than one occasion. Mather doesn’t just do the token “oh look, my character has a disability – but here’s how we magically move past it!”. It hampers Jess, but there’s also this awesome scene with a leg-bat and a cheesy one liner that you just need to read. I also liked that even though she was a marine, she doesn’t fall into the stereotypical behavioral models often portrayed. I won’t say more for fear of ruining it.
The other characters were neither here nor there. Whilst they weren’t cardboard cutouts, they just weren’t people I could care about. I know that I was supposed to feel a sense of tenseness as they raced against time in more ways than one, but I didn’t. Instead I wanted them to get their personal problems dealt with so the author could get back to destroying the earth.
Overall, Nomad was a good read that would probably thrill character-driven readers a lot more than it did me.