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A review by everybody
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
3.0
I'm gonna be honest here. I've seen this book constantly in my recommendations but because of the atypical cover combined with the title, I avoided it for over a year.
Yesterday I actually checked out the genre list and reviews and decided to finally give it a try.
It wasn't as good as I hoped but it was far better than I expected considering the appearance.
The action scenes were purely written to be stylish without much consideration for consistency or logic. One example that particularly stood out to me was a gun being reloaded but before there was a chance of it being fired again the MC picked it up and an ammo check resulted in 3 bullets left. I mean, yea, it could be that the person reloaded a mag with 3 bullets but come on. But the problem is broader than just details like that. The battles are more in line with an action game than a real fight. For example, the MC fighting 8 enemies at once but they all wait for her to finish styling on one of them before the next one attacks, and so on, and lots of other similar issues.
The plot was a little all over the place with quite a few story threads and hints that just lead nowhere.
I somewhat enjoy unconventional tension arcs in books because I got fed up reading the same "proper" arc-focused story structure over and over again. It's not that you can predict what exactly will happen in books like that but you get a feeling for what kind of thing will happen when and that kind of spoils some of the enjoyment of being surprised.
The story makes use of a lot of dated and shallow clichées but maybe that can be at least somewhat excused by the release date of 2012? I have no clue about the timeline of the UF genre development.
The heroine sadly is quite useless despite her fighting prowess and is mostly just accidentally dragged into the plot resolution without much active contribution. I've read much worse offenders in that regard but it still took away some of my appreciation for her character.
The author doesn't seem very interested in telling a story but rather uses the story as a tool to set up cool scenes she wanted to write. I feel it should be more the other way around.
Don't get me wrong, the plot actually is pretty decent but the way it is implemented didn't present it in the best light.
All in all, it's an average read which I rounded up as I think it would be unfair to rate it the same as some of the crap I have among my 2-star ratings.
I will try out the next book but I predict I will probably drop it early on, scratch that, after reading the blurb of the second book I decided to not continue.
Yesterday I actually checked out the genre list and reviews and decided to finally give it a try.
It wasn't as good as I hoped but it was far better than I expected considering the appearance.
The action scenes were purely written to be stylish without much consideration for consistency or logic. One example that particularly stood out to me was a gun being reloaded but before there was a chance of it being fired again the MC picked it up and an ammo check resulted in 3 bullets left. I mean, yea, it could be that the person reloaded a mag with 3 bullets but come on. But the problem is broader than just details like that. The battles are more in line with an action game than a real fight. For example, the MC fighting 8 enemies at once but they all wait for her to finish styling on one of them before the next one attacks, and so on, and lots of other similar issues.
The plot was a little all over the place with quite a few story threads and hints that just lead nowhere.
I somewhat enjoy unconventional tension arcs in books because I got fed up reading the same "proper" arc-focused story structure over and over again. It's not that you can predict what exactly will happen in books like that but you get a feeling for what kind of thing will happen when and that kind of spoils some of the enjoyment of being surprised.
The story makes use of a lot of dated and shallow clichées but maybe that can be at least somewhat excused by the release date of 2012? I have no clue about the timeline of the UF genre development.
The heroine sadly is quite useless despite her fighting prowess and is mostly just accidentally dragged into the plot resolution without much active contribution. I've read much worse offenders in that regard but it still took away some of my appreciation for her character.
The author doesn't seem very interested in telling a story but rather uses the story as a tool to set up cool scenes she wanted to write. I feel it should be more the other way around.
Don't get me wrong, the plot actually is pretty decent but the way it is implemented didn't present it in the best light.
All in all, it's an average read which I rounded up as I think it would be unfair to rate it the same as some of the crap I have among my 2-star ratings.
I will try out the next book but I predict I will probably drop it early on, scratch that, after reading the blurb of the second book I decided to not continue.