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review 2017-06-29 01:15
Free-Wrench by Joseph R Lallo
Free-Wrench - Joseph R. Lallo

Series: Free-Wrench #1

 

Some cataclysmic event created a toxic gas that covers the globe (but not the oceans?) killing off a bunch of people and driving the survivors to mountain ranges and so on and forcing people to travel by airship between clear areas. Nita Graus is from Caldera, named from the volcanic caldera that somehow protected her people from the toxic fug. The Calderans broke off contact with the rest of the world and so there’s pretty much only blackmarket trade with outsiders. Nita’s mother has a deadly degenerative disease so she’s driven to go off in an airship to try to find a cure or a treatment.

 

The author admitted in his author’s note that this novella only took about 3 months to write and publish and I’d say it shows. Some of the ideas could have been neat but a lot of them didn’t seem all that well thought through. Enemy airships immediately succumb to the same type of projectiles that barely scratched their own airship (there was some handwaving about strengthening the shell, I think, but it was pretty patchy to begin with) and a lot of the fight sequences were hard to visualize. I called the big “twist” almost immediately and found it to be extremely telegraphed. And it was weird and abrupt to see the captain go from “no, we cannot possibly jeopardize our trading position” to “yes, let’s attempt a heist”.

 

It was pretty well wrapped up so I’m not sure whether I’ll read the next one. I picked them both up in a bundle at some point, so I’m glad I finally got around to reading this one. It wasn’t terrible, but due to the issues mentioned above, I didn’t feel like I could rate it more than “okay” or two stars. Oh, I forgot to mention that a lot of the viewpoints or philosophies felt kind of preachy which bugged me even though I didn’t necessarily disagree with them. They just felt over the top, I guess, and Nita’s “I know better” attitude was grating.

 

I read this for booklikes-opoly square #29 The Monorail “Read a book that involves travel by air, has an airplane on the cover or is set in a city with a subway”. Nita joins the crew of an airship which travels around, so I think that covers the “travel by air” part, and there’s also an image of the airship (dirigible) on the cover (not an airplane, but close enough it probably counts). I’ve seen page counts of 152 (paperback) and 178 (Kindle) but either one adds another $4 to my bank, bringing my total to $160.

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review 2016-09-24 00:00
Free-Wrench
Free-Wrench - Joseph R. Lallo I like this series ... reminds me a bit of the Clockwork Century series by Cherie Priest (Boneshaker etc) but that might just be due to "fug" being similar to "Blight"!
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review 2016-07-29 07:11
The Book of Deacon by Joseph R. Lallo
The Book of Deacon - Joseph Lallo

Myranda is alone, the last surviving member of her village, and a pacifist in a world that seems bent on rejecting peace. In the Northern Alliance, her home, speaking out against the Perpetual War can get a person ostracized or worse. Myranda finds herself constantly on the move, and it is during her aimless travels that she comes across a dead soldier and his beautiful jeweled sword. That sword lands Myranda in an enormous amount of trouble, bringing her to the attention of the Northern Alliance's elite soldiers, a rebel group known as Undermine, and a deadly and mysterious assassin known as the Red Shadow.

I downloaded this for free about three years ago and finally decided to read it when I saw that the author's other books were part of the current month-long Smashwords sale. I was particularly interested in The Rise of the Red Shadow, because I'm a sucker for gorgeous cover art and anthropomorphic foxes.

The Book of Deacon did a pretty good job of killing my interest in getting more of this series. It may have a pretty cover, but the text itself read like an early draft rather than a polished and complete work. There were typos, incorrectly used words, sentences that used the wrong verb tense, and way too many instances of the words “rather” and “quite,” but the real problem was the work as a whole.

Yeah, I know that sounds harsh. I do think that there was a decent story in here, but it was buried under plodding pacing, ridiculous, incorrect, or confusing details, and a lack of decent focus. It needed somebody to go through the whole thing and ask questions like “Does this make sense?”, “Is this section necessary?” and “Is there a better way to communicate this information?” At the very least.

One of many examples: women didn't traditionally become soldiers, but the war had been going on for so long that there simply weren't enough men anymore. Women had started to go off to war rather than stay at home and raise families. You'd think that this would lead to things like a steadily shrinking population, a healthy respect for anyone that might be considered this world's equivalent of a doctor, and maybe protests against the war. Instead, people attacked or shunned anyone who was against the war. On the one hand, it was made illegal for white magic practitioners to practice white magic (healing, among other things) in the service of anyone but the Northern Alliance Army. On the other hand, many white magic practitioners were let go from the army because it was supposedly easier to just replace fallen soldiers than heal them. Which directly contradicted the detail about the lack of men leading to more women becoming soldiers. None of it made any sense.

There was some evidence, later on in the book, that the Northern Alliance had been infiltrated by the series' true bad guys, a group of inhuman beings. Maybe they were using the war to slowly destroy the Northern Alliance from within, but that didn't explain the shocking way Myranda was treated. People who should have been at least a little interested in her continued survival seemed determined to kill her with apathy.

The rebel group that found Myranda knew her shoulder was wounded but hadn't even planned to look at it, much less do anything about it. When they realized it was infected, they let her have a night's rest, gave her some food and water, and sent her on a multi-day journey to a wizard. Granted, Myranda herself didn't seem to think her injury was worth much concern either, because she didn't immediately tell the wizard about it. When she finally mentioned it, he removed the bit of wood that led to the infection and then told her she'd better learn white magic quickly, because he was going to expect her to heal herself. He didn't mention that it should have taken her 3+ weeks to learn everything she needed to know. Luckily, she was super special and learned fast.

Like I said, I don't think anyone read this book through prior to its publication and asked whether everything made sense. I kept reading, though, because I'm bad at DNFing books and because there were occasional good bits. I liked Leo, who reminded me a little of Disney's Robin Hood, and the baby dragon was kind of cute.

The last third of the book made me regret my decision to continue on. Myranda ended up in a hidden village filled with what were essentially academics. Literally everyone studied simply for the sake of studying – practical work, like food growing, could be quickly taken care of via magic. For absolutely no reason, all of the village's Master-level magic users fought to be the first to train Myranda their variety of magic, and, although she'd only just started to learn magic, she was instantly put in expert-level training sessions. She took days or weeks to learn what should have taken her months or years. Meanwhile Deacon, an actual magical genius who'd been studying for years, worried that he'd only hold Myranda back if he spent too much time with her.

(Yes, there was a hint of romance, but only a hint, because they were both too socially awkward to make much progress in that area. It went something like this: Master magic user: "Psst! Tell her she's pretty." Deacon: "I'm sure you already know this, Myranda, but you're lovely. *blush*" Myranda: "Oh! *blush* Thank you. You're a really nice friend.")

I honestly don't think it was necessary for readers to see every detail of Myranda learning to master first fire, then air, then earth, and then water. It was excruciating and often ridiculous. Also, I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with Myranda. She got angry at Leo/Lain for not doing what he could to stop the war, but she should really have directed her anger at the entire village. Everyone there was a powerful magic user and/or warrior, and not one of them had even tried to leave the village, much less lifted a finger to stop the war. They were all content with their petty rivalries, meaningless squabbles, and neverending research.

Although this ended on a cliffhanger, I have no desire to find out what happens next.

 

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

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text 2016-07-28 19:05
Reading progress update: I've read 321 out of 321 pages.
The Book of Deacon - Joseph Lallo

I'm finished, finally. I agree with the reviewers who have said this read like an early draft. The author needed a really good, really honest critique partner, content editor, something.

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text 2016-07-13 03:02
Reading progress update: I've read 193 out of 321 pages.
The Book of Deacon - Joseph Lallo

All the Masters just battled each other for the opportunity to teach Myranda their brand of magic first. And she's getting to skip the beginner stuff and go straight to "expert level," even though she has zero experience with (or even prior knowledge of?) most of these types of magics.

 

Okay then...

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