A review by futuriana
Principles of Angels by Jaine Fenn
3.0
The overall setting was pretty interesting, and worth exploring but curiously for a book set in a thousand-year old city full of ancient tech and related mysteries, it wasn't until the very end that the city itself felt real or alive to me, before that it suffered from being seen from the perspectives of the two POV characters, one of whom doesn't live in the city proper and the other is newly arrived and not particularly enamored with the place, the result felt a bit sketchy and superficial for such a potentially fascinating locale.
The main character of Taro was likable and believable despite his somewhat extreme situation, he managed to be reasonably competent in certain situations and out of his depth in others. The other POV character worked less well, since I personally found her unsympathetic and frustrating, and to be perfectly honest not all that bright.
The first two thirds of the book are spent with these two characters, so your enjoyment will depend on how you like them. In the last third the pace picks up and the action gets going, which makes things a lot more fun, there are some surprises (perhaps one too many, I'm still a bit confused as to how the first evil plot morphed into the second evil plot, but it doesn't matter all that much by the chase scene :) and all it all Fenn wraps up all the strands into a neat little bow while leaving the door open for the larger plot to continue on in the next book.
The main character of Taro was likable and believable despite his somewhat extreme situation, he managed to be reasonably competent in certain situations and out of his depth in others. The other POV character worked less well, since I personally found her unsympathetic and frustrating, and to be perfectly honest not all that bright.
The first two thirds of the book are spent with these two characters, so your enjoyment will depend on how you like them. In the last third the pace picks up and the action gets going, which makes things a lot more fun, there are some surprises (perhaps one too many, I'm still a bit confused as to how the first evil plot morphed into the second evil plot, but it doesn't matter all that much by the chase scene :) and all it all Fenn wraps up all the strands into a neat little bow while leaving the door open for the larger plot to continue on in the next book.