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First, let me say that this book has potential, but that potential doesn’t rise up until far too late in the story. The setting is well formed – it’s dark, layered and a fun sort of steampunk. The interaction of demons with humanity and the only barely mentioned church is a great backdrop. And everyone loves an anti-hero.
However, the beginning of the book in particular has a number of flaws. The prose is over-written and interspersed with clumsy info-dumps. The descriptions are evocative, but they go at least one step too far and often end up contradictory as a result.
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And it goes downhill from there. Yes, Blaklok isn’t a very nice guy. Apparently he’s pretty tough, but the unsupported confidence and pathetic arrogance is just too much. And from there, we get to see Blaklok repeatedly fail, get beat up, captured multiple times, and nearly killed a few times along the way while that arrogance never goes away. Finally toward the very end of the book Blaklok suddenly starts using all of these powerful magical abilities that he hadn’t bothered to use when his life was just as threatened at earlier times in the book. It simply doesn’t fit together.
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The depth that you get from the quote above is about as deep as Blaklok gets. That is until the very end, when we get just a few hints that there is actually reason behind his madness and perhaps something even interesting about him. I really don’t have the desire to read about some arrogant asshole without any real motivation. But someone with a conflicted past, someone in it for a greater purpose? Hell, it may be rather cliché, but at least there’s potential. It’s a real shame that this sort of hints didn’t happen until the last few pages of the book.
Full Review
However, the beginning of the book in particular has a number of flaws. The prose is over-written and interspersed with clumsy info-dumps. The descriptions are evocative, but they go at least one step too far and often end up contradictory as a result.
...
And it goes downhill from there. Yes, Blaklok isn’t a very nice guy. Apparently he’s pretty tough, but the unsupported confidence and pathetic arrogance is just too much. And from there, we get to see Blaklok repeatedly fail, get beat up, captured multiple times, and nearly killed a few times along the way while that arrogance never goes away. Finally toward the very end of the book Blaklok suddenly starts using all of these powerful magical abilities that he hadn’t bothered to use when his life was just as threatened at earlier times in the book. It simply doesn’t fit together.
...
The depth that you get from the quote above is about as deep as Blaklok gets. That is until the very end, when we get just a few hints that there is actually reason behind his madness and perhaps something even interesting about him. I really don’t have the desire to read about some arrogant asshole without any real motivation. But someone with a conflicted past, someone in it for a greater purpose? Hell, it may be rather cliché, but at least there’s potential. It’s a real shame that this sort of hints didn’t happen until the last few pages of the book.
Full Review
This post has been edited by kcf: 06 February 2012 - 10:51 PM
