A review by catbooking
The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman
3.0
This is the only book to my memory, which is admittedly terrible, where I really needed to know what the protagonist was wearing. Specifically, I needed to know if Liv was wearing a skirt down to the floor, like a proper woman that she is, or if breeches were an acceptable attire. Ultimately, it would change nothing about how hard, or let's face it, ridiculously easy, it was for her to cross all of the known continent, but still.
Clothing details not withstanding, the rest of the book was a bit of an unfocused mess. There were places and settings, but they never had any influence on characters or their actions. Characters did things for reasons that sometimes were their own and sometimes foisted onto them by supernatural beings, but almost always without a logical reason. Primary character motivations were muddy and incoherent, and almost always had no influence on character actions or reactions. Things just happened and they were described and then the book ended.
Overall I got the feeling that the author had a handful of images in his mind that he wanted to communicate to the reader, but no story to go with those images. So we just went from one pretty scene to another without any of the characters ever evolving or changing, or showing that the setting or events had some effect on them.
Clothing details not withstanding, the rest of the book was a bit of an unfocused mess. There were places and settings, but they never had any influence on characters or their actions. Characters did things for reasons that sometimes were their own and sometimes foisted onto them by supernatural beings, but almost always without a logical reason. Primary character motivations were muddy and incoherent, and almost always had no influence on character actions or reactions. Things just happened and they were described and then the book ended.
Overall I got the feeling that the author had a handful of images in his mind that he wanted to communicate to the reader, but no story to go with those images. So we just went from one pretty scene to another without any of the characters ever evolving or changing, or showing that the setting or events had some effect on them.