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A review by sarkos
A Star-Reckoner's Lot by Darrell Drake
2.0
It's an interesting premise and unique setting, but the writing could use some work. The author tends to skip between scenes and POVs without warning, and is overly fond of flowery archaic language, regardless of how apt it is. I had to rely quite heavily on the Kindle dictionary lookup feature.
Here's a sample sentence from a battle scene: "The lines clashed, erupting in a riotous din that carried for farsangs, and the formidable Eshm sisters hammered a sanguinolent wedge into the centre of the melee."
So, "farsangs" is great, it's clear from the context that it's a unit of measurement, and in fact it's an Iranian word so it is apt. However, "sanguinolent" I had to look up. According to the dictionary, this word is used in a medical context to describe liquids mixed with blood. And it's derived from Latin so it doesn't even fit the Iranian context. So why not just use the word "bloody"?
Here's a sample sentence from a battle scene: "The lines clashed, erupting in a riotous din that carried for farsangs, and the formidable Eshm sisters hammered a sanguinolent wedge into the centre of the melee."
So, "farsangs" is great, it's clear from the context that it's a unit of measurement, and in fact it's an Iranian word so it is apt. However, "sanguinolent" I had to look up. According to the dictionary, this word is used in a medical context to describe liquids mixed with blood. And it's derived from Latin so it doesn't even fit the Iranian context. So why not just use the word "bloody"?