A review by mdpenguin
Apocalypse Nyx by Kameron Hurley

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This wasn't quite my style – too much gore, bugs, and people being unpleasant to each other – but it was still really good.  I felt the same way about The Light Brigade, I'm not into militaristic SF but I was still drawn in.  The characters were well drawn and believable.  Even the unpleasantness seemed to have a reason for it and wasn't just part of the schema for the genre.  I was also impressed that this felt like reading a novel even though it was a series of short stories spanning a few years.  I think that the only weaknesses to this was that I felt like I was supposed to be learning a backstory to a group of people I already knew about and that the backstory wasn't enough to explain why some of the people would put up with working for someone as abusive and seemingly uncaring as Nyx.  That feeling of missing something faded away by the last story, so I suspect that this would be better for people already familiar with the Bel Dame Apocrypha series, but I'm not sure that I buy the team staying together for long enough to get into whatever the main trilogy is about.  I probably won't dive into the main trilogy anytime soon, but if the first book fell into my lap then I wouldn't shy away from it and would probably keep reading the rest of them.