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A review by squirrelsohno
Brilliance by Marcus Sakey
3.0
BRILLIANCE was a book that had been on my radar awhile, and I'll be honest - it was on my radar because it's a very reasonably priced novel being from a traditional publisher. That and the cover! It's epic in my opinion. Eventually, I borrowed it from the Prime Lending Library and dug in. And I read. I kept reading. A few weeks passed, still working on it. Still reading. Eventually I finished and came to a conclusion.
As epic as the book sounds on the back cover, it's not as epic once you realize that you've basically read a play by play of a movie, not a book.
A CINEMATIC BOOK
Coming from Amazon Publishing's Thomas & Mercer imprint, BRILLIANCE follows Nick Cooper, an agent of a secret unit of the US government tasked with dealing with the sudden rise of Brilliants, human beings that suddenly evolved beginning with people born in 1980. Their powers range from being able to play an instrument perfectly to manipulating the stock market in order to make $300 billion and crash the US economy in a matter of days. But when Cooper uncovers a terrorist plot, he goes deep undercover to expose it while taking the blame himself - and to save his family. Oh, and he is a Brilliant. That bears mentioning.
Yeah, it's a pretty standard plot.
The main issue I had with BRILLIANCE was the fact it seemed like Sakey was describing the action in a movie. We never really get into the heads of the characters, and there most certainly isn't character development. The action is fun, it's fast-paced, it's thrilling, but it's just action. It's a movie on paper. Likewise, our characters really are just cardboard. Cooper's personality is dull, and the people around him are just figures. We never know anyone, and it really lowers the quality of the story.
WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS BEFORE...
BRILLIANCE also suffers from sameness. While exciting - I mean, a book can't be anything but exciting with the twists and turns and neat tricks Cooper uses - it just feels like a rehash of X-Men to an extent. The characters feel played out, and the plot seems a little stale. Although, I do give Sakey credit for buying up Wyoming to turn it into a Brilliant homeland full of technology and super-advanced stuff, although his Wyoming seemed an awful lot more like Nevada or Arizona. I enjoyed the book for what it was - a mindfluff story - but it's little more. Oh well.
VERDICT: Without character development, or characterization period, BRILLIANCE is a fun but entirely lacking story. With more attention paid to the characters, it would have taken off to the heavens, but instead just exists.
As epic as the book sounds on the back cover, it's not as epic once you realize that you've basically read a play by play of a movie, not a book.
A CINEMATIC BOOK
Coming from Amazon Publishing's Thomas & Mercer imprint, BRILLIANCE follows Nick Cooper, an agent of a secret unit of the US government tasked with dealing with the sudden rise of Brilliants, human beings that suddenly evolved beginning with people born in 1980. Their powers range from being able to play an instrument perfectly to manipulating the stock market in order to make $300 billion and crash the US economy in a matter of days. But when Cooper uncovers a terrorist plot, he goes deep undercover to expose it while taking the blame himself - and to save his family. Oh, and he is a Brilliant. That bears mentioning.
Yeah, it's a pretty standard plot.
The main issue I had with BRILLIANCE was the fact it seemed like Sakey was describing the action in a movie. We never really get into the heads of the characters, and there most certainly isn't character development. The action is fun, it's fast-paced, it's thrilling, but it's just action. It's a movie on paper. Likewise, our characters really are just cardboard. Cooper's personality is dull, and the people around him are just figures. We never know anyone, and it really lowers the quality of the story.
WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS BEFORE...
BRILLIANCE also suffers from sameness. While exciting - I mean, a book can't be anything but exciting with the twists and turns and neat tricks Cooper uses - it just feels like a rehash of X-Men to an extent. The characters feel played out, and the plot seems a little stale. Although, I do give Sakey credit for buying up Wyoming to turn it into a Brilliant homeland full of technology and super-advanced stuff, although his Wyoming seemed an awful lot more like Nevada or Arizona. I enjoyed the book for what it was - a mindfluff story - but it's little more. Oh well.
VERDICT: Without character development, or characterization period, BRILLIANCE is a fun but entirely lacking story. With more attention paid to the characters, it would have taken off to the heavens, but instead just exists.