The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez Book Review by Ciara Ballintyne

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Book Review, Ciara Ballintyne, Club Fantasci, Michael J. Martinez, Science Fiction, The Daedalus Incident

The Daedalus Incident

A refreshingly original sci-fi/historical fantasy mash-up, with an incredible premise. The Daedalus Incident combines sci-fi set on Mars in the 22^nd century with historical fantasy set in the 18^th century of an alternative reality.

The story contains two major threads. The sci-fi thread, as I thought of it, featured Lieutenant Shaila Jain, a member of the Royal British Navy (and the JSC which I took to be some joint cooperative between the UK and USA) posted on Mars as part of a small military operation supervising a mining operation. When they begin experiencing earthquakes where there should be none, she discovers a subterranean cave in which a wall is building itself and a journal that is writing itself.

The historical fantasy features Lieutenant Thomas Weatherby, a member of the Royal British Navy in the 18^th century onboard the HMS Daedalus as it sails through space between planets. I was initially confused by this, but quickly decided this wasn’t our past, but had to be the past in an alternate reality, one where alchemy really can turn lead into gold and allow ships to sail through space on the solar winds. Of course, in our reality, the solar wind is something that would tear apart an 18^th century frigate, but placing us in an alternate reality allowed me to suspend belief and accept that this might be possible in a world with working alchemy.

The journal Lt. Jain has found is, of course, that of Lt Weatherby and she and her team watch in disbelief as words literally appear on the paper, describing what to them seems a work of fiction. Only when they run out of other possible explanations do they begin to think this might be real.

Lt. Weatherby, in his world, is on the trail of an evil alchemist, Cagliostro, who is in the process of collecting the various alchemical essences of the solar system so that he might perform some great alchemical working to achieve his nefarious purposes. It is unclear what his intentions are to start, but it was at least apparent to me that whatever he was doing was what was causing the blurring between universes.

The story threads and the universes do eventually merge so that Lts. Jain and Weatherby meet each other, but I won’t say more than that so I don’t ruin the ending.

Apart from the spectacular story, the thing that struck me most was the ‘voice’ of Lts. Jain and Weatherby. You could open this story anywhere and know immediately which thread you were in by the ‘sound’ of the narrator. It was so incredibly distinctive I think I’ve even learned something from it.

That said, having established these distinct voices, it frustrated me that later the story fell more into an omniscient style POV. I didn’t find this as obvious as the beginning of the book, where we seemed well-entrenched in either the head of Weatherby or Jain, and the first time I found myself in the perspective of Dr Finch, alchemist to the Daedalus, I was badly jarred, and even more so when we switched back to Weatherby when Finch wandered away. This same issue then began to crop up in the other story thread, and became even more jarring when the threads merged, as I could find myself in the thoughts of either Jain or Weatherby without warning, and my brain evidently wanted to settle into one or the other unless very clearly signalled to switch.

While I am not a fan of omniscient, I usually find it distances me more than jars me, where in this case I found it particularly disorienting, perhaps because often I did feel I was inside the character’s head. I think this was largely because of the distinctive ‘voices’ of the two main characters, so the sudden switch between characters was about as pleasant as a bucket of cold water. Additionally, each Weatherby segment opened with his journal entry, written in the first person, so there was a tendency to want to stay with Weatherby and inside his head. While the genre mash-up was effective, I found this ‘POV mash-up’ less desirable.

I enjoyed the characters, particular Weatherby who had a very strong sense of ‘British stiff upper lip’. The story had a romance sub-plot, with French planetologist Stephane as Jain’s love interest, and budding alchemist Anne Baker as Weatherby’s. Stephane’s character was the more compelling of the two for me, funny, flirtatious but sincere, and I wanted Lt. Jain to be happy with.

By contrast, Anne Baker fell flat. She seemed a woman out of her time, and while Weatherby chided Jain for her behaviour being unseemly for a woman, Anne seemed accepted even though she behaved almost completely contrary to the expectations of a woman in her time, and this felt odd to me. Her backstory never rang true to me, either, or the romantic conflict with Weatherby – I don’t feel the significance of her past was explore deeply enough. But mostly, I just didn’t find her likeable, and so didn’t particularly want the romance to blossom.

The story introduced some fun twists with Benjamin Franklin featuring as an alchemist, and the Count de Germain as the pre-eminent alchemist of his era and discoverer of the Philosopher’s Stone. The United States of America didn’t exist, with the British colony in rebellion instead being the United States of Ganymede located on a moon of Jupiter! Napolean Bonaparte also scored a reference.

A few other minor gripes – the mighty aliens of Xan didn’t feel three-dimensional to me, and I can’t really say why. There just seems to be something missing from the puzzle of who the Xan are and their part in the conflict. Perhaps there are secrets still to be revealed, I don’t know, just something about this felt rushed or skimmed over. Also the tendency to experiment with dialogue tags was distracting sometimes, where a plain ‘said’ would have served better.

Despite that, this is still a superb story, and with it left open for a sequel, I will certainly be looking it up if the author ever writes one.

Ciara is a writer of high fantasy. A fantasy lover from her early years, this loyal, passionate, quirky, strong-willed, confident woman is bent on world domination and already has a couple of minions in the making. Born argumentative and recognising the long road to make money out of writing, Ciara wisely invested her natural inclinations in a career in law. Her favourite authors include Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan and Brent Weeks. She is the official dragon expert of #stabbylove.

More information about Ciara Ballintyne can be found on www.ciaraballintyne.com

 

 

 

 

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August’s Book of the Month “The Curse of Chalion” by Lois McMaster Bujold

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Book Review, Books, Ciara Ballintyne, Club Fantasci, David Lowry, Dionne Lister, Fantasy, Google+, hangout, Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

A man broken in body and spirit, Cazaril returns to the noble household he once served as page and is named secretary-tutor to the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is next in line to rule. It is an assignment Cazaril dreads, for it must ultimately lead him to the place he most fears: the royal court of Cardegoss, where the powerful enemies who once placed him in chains now occupy lofty positions.

But it is more than the traitorous intrigues of villains that threaten Cazaril and the Royesse Iselle here, for a sinister curse hangs like a sword over the entire blighted House of Chalion. And only by employing the darkest, most forbidden of magics can Cazaril hope to protect his royal charge — an act that will mark him as a tool of the miraculous . . . and trap him in a lethal maze of demonic paradox.

We will be discussing this book on August 30th at 7:30pm CST. Make sure to join us here to watch the hangout and tweet us @ClubFantasci to join in on the conversation!

Find out more about “The Curse of Chalion” and Lois McMaster Bujold here: http://www.dendarii.com/

Watch the Hangout here: 

Tweet us at @ClubFantasci to join in the conversation!

Cloud Atlas Book Review by Ciara Ballintyne

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Australia, Authors, Book Club, Book Publishing, Book Review, Ciara Ballintyne, Cloud Atlas, Club Fantasci, David Lowry, David Mitchell, Fantasy, The Lowry Agency, Writers

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is a difficult book to pin down, a difficult book to explain in any way that makes sense, and ultimately difficult to read.

The book is actually six intertwined stories. Each story is interrupted halfway, and each successive character, further along in history, knows something of the previous character. As the story of the last character completes, he learns the rest of the story of the character previous to him, and so on until we arrive back at the end of the first character’s story.

The first character is Adam Ewing, a public notary on-board a ship in the South Pacific in 1850, whose story is recorded as journal entries.

Robert Frobisher takes over the second story. He is a struggling bisexual musician disowned by his father in 1931 and seeking employment in Belgium with dying composer Vyvyan Ayrs. His story is told by means of letters to his old lover Rufus Sixsmith, and he mentions the discovery of half the journal of Adam Ewing.

Luisa Rey, a journalist in 1975, meets Rufus Sixsmith and subsequently investigates the safety of a nuclear power plant. She receives half of Frobisher’s letters from Sixsmith. Her story is told in the style of a mystery thriller.

Timothy Cavendish, the fourth character, is a vanity publisher in Britain in the present day, who flees his gangster creditors and is tricked by his brother into a nursing home from which he must escape. During the course of his story, he reads a book submission – Half-Lives: the First Luisa Rey Mystery.

The fifth character, Somni~451, is a genetically modified clone in the future. She was designed and created specifically to serve in Papa Song’s restaurants for a period of 12 years, after which each server is released to paradise in Hawaii. Clones are created specific to their role, unable to reproduce, or even think in many cases, and kept sedated and docile to serve the whims of the ‘purebloods’. This story is set in Neo So Copros, which turns out to be Korea, but the ‘corpocracy’ (corporate culture elevated to the status of religion) appears to be world-wide, with references to Africa as a ‘Production Zone’. Her story is told as the recordings of a condemned woman’s last words, and during her tale she mentions watching a film, ‘The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish’.

The sixth character, Zachry, exists in a post-apocalyptic world which has descended back into a largely uncivilised state with limited technological resources. Somni is the goddess to whom his people pray, and during the course of his life, he watches the recordings of Somni’s last words and learns the truth about her. It is at the end of his tale, when he sits down to watch the last half of Somni’s tale, that the order of stories reverses.

While this is clever, and well-executed, and each character has their own distinct voice and way of speaking, it also doesn’t make for the easiest read. Adam Ewing uses the dialect of the time, making it hard to read and difficult to engage. As the first story, it made it difficult for me to get into the book. The last character, Zachry, also uses a distorted version of our language and this was extremely difficult for me to understand at first, although I found eventually my brain became accustomed to it and read it easily.

Once I moved on to Frobisher’s letters, I was far more engaged in the story and keen to keep reading, but each story broke off at a critical point. While this is a common technique to hook the reader, in this case I didn’t know if I was ever going to come back to that character, and I was reluctant to engage with the next character. By the time I came back to each story, particular Frobisher and Ewing, I found I couldn’t even recall what had happened.

The prose is flawless, but perhaps too obviously so, remaining in the foreground to flaunt itself rather than fading invisibly into the background and leaving the reader to enjoy the story. As for enjoying the story, while I did enjoy it, not as much as I could have done. Some of the characters are obviously doomed from the beginning, making it difficult to really commit to that character, and ultimately I found I didn’t care about their ends.

Part of that, I think, is that the book isn’t obviously about anything. After some thought, I had to conclude that what the book was about was the human predilection to violence and selfishness at the expense of our fellows. A worthy topic, but hardly one that inspires enjoyment. A story should be about its characters, so the reader connects with them, empathises with them, and cheers them on.

Many other speculative fiction books deal with difficult topics – Pratchett, for example, deals with racism through the device of speciesism in the city of Ankh-Morpork and specifically the issue of which species can apply to be in the City Watch. But never would anyone pick up a Discworld book and declare ‘this book is about racism’. Because it’s not, it’s about the characters, with themes of racism. Cloud Atlas, however, is about its themes, because the stories are only incidental to the theme. The characters and their ends are not important in and of themselves, but only as a means to make a point.

I’m not saying the book isn’t well-written. It is, impressively so, and the author pulls of literary feats that are technically awesome. I’m not saying the book isn’t enjoyable. It is, and I did, but perhaps not in the same way that I enjoy my favourites.

However, I do believe the book was written for a very select audience, and if you’re not part of that audience, you might not appreciate this book. I don’t believe I’m part of that audience, and while the book was generally enjoyable, perhaps not enough to make up for the effort required to read it.

Ciara is a writer of high fantasy. A fantasy lover from her early years, this loyal, passionate, quirky, strong-willed, confident woman is bent on world domination and already has a couple of minions in the making. Born argumentative and recognizing the long road to make money out of writing, Ciara wisely invested her natural inclinations in a career in law. Her favourite authors include Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan and Brent Weeks. She is the official dragon expert of #stabbylove.

More information about Ciara Ballintyne can be found on www.ciaraballintyne.com

August’s Book of the Month “The Curse of Chalion” by Lois McMaster Bujold

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Book Review, Ciara Ballintyne, Club Fantasci, David Lowry, Dionne Lister, Fantasy, hangout, Lois McMaster Bujold, Melody-Ann Jones Kaufmann, The Curse of Chalion, The Lowry Agency

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

A man broken in body and spirit, Cazaril returns to the noble household he once served as page and is named secretary-tutor to the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is next in line to rule. It is an assignment Cazaril dreads, for it must ultimately lead him to the place he most fears: the royal court of Cardegoss, where the powerful enemies who once placed him in chains now occupy lofty positions.

But it is more than the traitorous intrigues of villains that threaten Cazaril and the Royesse Iselle here, for a sinister curse hangs like a sword over the entire blighted House of Chalion. And only by employing the darkest, most forbidden of magics can Cazaril hope to protect his royal charge — an act that will mark him as a tool of the miraculous . . . and trap him in a lethal maze of demonic paradox.

We will be discussing this book on August 30th at 7:30pm CST. Make sure to join us here to watch the hangout and tweet us @ClubFantasci to join in on the conversation!

Find out more about “The Curse of Chalion” and Lois McMaster Bujold here: http://www.dendarii.com/

July Book of the Month “Cloud Atlas” Hangout

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Book Reviews, Books, Ciara Ballintyne, Cloud Atlas, Club Fantasci, David Lowry, Dionne Lister, hangout, Melody Ann Jones-Kaufman

Cloud Atlas

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation—the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.
In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

The Hangout for this book will take place on August 2nd, 2013 at 7:30pm CST.

 

July’s Book of the Month “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell

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Book Club, Ciara Ballintyne, Cloud Atlas, Club Fantasci, David Lowry, David Mitchell, Dionne Lister, Fantasy, Melody Ann Jones-Kaufman, Science Fiction, The Lowry Agency

Cloud Atlas

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation—the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.
In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

The Hangout for this book will take place on August 2nd, 2013 at 7:30pm CST.

“Fool Moon” by Jim Butcher Review by Ciara Ballintyne

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Book Club, Book Review, Ciara Ballintyne, Club Fantasci, Fool Moon, Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

Meet Harry Dresden, wizard for hire in the city of Chicago, and sometime consultant to the Special Investigations Department of the Chicago Police Department. In bad odour with his police liaison, Murphy, he is nevertheless called in to help investigate a series of murders that took place around the full moon. Did somebody say werewolf?

The story is fast-paced, in pursuit of the killer – or is it killers? – before any more innocents are torn to shreds. There are plenty of suspects, but something doesn’t feel right about MacFinn, who seems a shoo-in for the honour. While the deaths match his modus operandi, he is a strictly full moon kind of guy, and some of the deaths have occurred a few nights before or after. Who could be setting him up? Things are complicated by the fact the FBI keep trying to shut the local police out of the investigation, and Murphy herself is under investigation by Internal Affairs, who consider Dresden a charlatan.

The story is a little slow to start, but once it gets going it careens from one plot point to the next, with plenty of thrills, kills and excitement, and enough mystery and plot twists to keep you guessing. One of the backstory sub-plots is intriguing enough to make me consider reading the sequels, just to find out what happens, notwithstanding the rest of my comments below. About halfway through, the speed really cranks up, and the story just carries you along, caught in its grip. Some of the best scenes are the action scenes, which sweep you along like a wave.

Despite that, I never really connected with the narrator, Harry Dresden. For someone who strikes deals with demons on a regular basis, and assists the police in pursuit of bloodthirsty supernatural killers, he sure is sensitive. A little fear is reasonable, but Dresden seemed to dwell on it in a way that made me think if he was really that high-strung, he would have given up his career long before now. Later in the book he says he’s able to think past fear, but her never actually gave me that impression. My failure to properly connect with him meant I didn’t much care what happened to him, and I certainly felt no sense of satisfaction when he ‘got the girl’. I kept reading purely out of curiosity to know the answers to all the questions.

The ‘voice’ of the character never really worked for me either. To start with, I don’t ever feel we really go deep enough into the character to allow the first person point of view to colour and pervade the entire story, and secondly the voice seems inappropriate. Dresden ‘teeters’ and ‘trumpets’ in a way that is inconsistent with my notion of a powerful wizard – at least one who fancies women. If he was a particular type of gay guy, I’d have no issue with these descriptors, or the fact that he says he ‘decorates in textures rather than colours’, but I have yet to meet the heterosexual man who would even admit to decorating.

In addition, he gets lucky far too often, and the fact he berated himself for being an idiot on about three separate occasions in the first third of the book had me pretty well convinced he was an idiot! Despite the fact it was obvious to me almost immediately that the killer was a loup-garou (or was intended to look like one), Dresden didn’t pick up on that fact until it was in his face, nor the fact Tera Hill was a wolf in sheep’s clothing – I mean, human clothing. The odd way she spoke and the way she moved made that pretty obvious, but Dresden was so far behind me it wasn’t funny. It’s good for readers to guess answers, but it’s bad if the protagonist is so far behind he looks stupid.

Butcher’s writing is functional and workmanlike, being most effective in the action scenes, but hardly high art, and the book could also have done with a thorough edit, being littered with issues such as:

• ‘Saidisms’, such as ‘stammered’, ‘gasped’, ‘hissed’, my personal eye-roll favourite ‘thundered’ and so forth instead of the perfectly serviceable ‘said’, or even better, use of an action tag;
• Mixed metaphors and inconsistent descriptions – one character ‘glides’ in a ‘long lope’ – in my opinion you can glide, or you can lope, but you can’t do both at once. Similarly at one point Dresden says his heartbeat is ‘relaxed and steady with excitement’. Is it just me, or are you either relaxed or excited but not both at once?;
• Use of redundant words like ‘that’; and
• Passive language.

If you’re particular about the quality of the writing, these issues may make it difficult for you to really get into the book until about halfway, if you make it that far. If you’re not so picky, and you’re just looking for a good fast story, it’s definitely worth your time.

Ciara is a writer of high fantasy. A fantasy lover from her early years, this loyal, passionate, quirky, strong-willed, confident woman is bent on world domination and already has a couple of minions in the making. Born argumentative and recognising the long road to make money out of writing, Ciara wisely invested her natural inclinations in a career in law. Her favourite authors include Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan and Brent Weeks. She is the official dragon expert of #stabbylove.

More information about Ciara Ballintyne can be found on www.ciaraballintyne.com

 

 

 

 

June Book of the Month “Fool Moon” Hangout

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Book Club, Ciara Ballintyne, Club Fantasci, David Lowry, Dionne Lister, Fool Moon, Jim Butcher, Melody Ann Jones-Kaufman, The Dresden Files, urban fantasy

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

Business has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn’t been able to dredge up any kind of work — magical or mundane.

But just when it looks like he can’t afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise.

A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses — and the first two don’t count…

You can find out more about Jim Butcher here: www.jim-butcher.com

View the Hangout here: 

Waylander by David Gemmell Review by Ciara Ballintyne

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Australia, Authors, Book Club, Book Publishers, Book Publishing, Book Review, Books, Ciara Ballintyne, Club Fantasci, Dark Fantasy, David Gemmell, David Lowry, Dionne Lister, dystopian, Epic, Epic Fantasy, Erotica, Fantasy, Horror, Indie authors, Lycans, Militaristic Science Fiction, Monsters, Nashville, Paranormal, Reading, Romance, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Steampunk, Supernatural, Supernatural Romance, The Lowry Agency, urban fantasy, Vampires, Waylander, Werewolves, Writers

Waylander by David Gemmell

The basic story idea of Waylander is like a picture of a Big Mac – perfect, juicy, mouth-watering, and oh so tempting. The book itself, unfortunately, is the sad, squashed reality handed to you in the drive thru.

Waylander is an infamous assassin, whose conscience is touched – literally – by the purity of the priest Dardalion, whom Waylander incidentally saves in pursuit of his stolen horse. Waylander’s walk towards the light would have been more compelling if it had been by conscious choice rather than appearing to be by ‘infection’ with Dardalion’s purity. At the same time, Dardalion is tainted by Waylander’s amorality and abandons his pacifist stance, taking up weapons in defence of the innocent – to the horror of most of his brother priests.

Waylander is approached by the old King of Drenai, and father of the king he murdered, to find and retrieve his fabled ‘Armour of Bronze’. The armour has no special powers, but could serve as a rallying point for Egel, the general leading the failing Drenai army against the invading Vagrian forces. Although there is no particular reason for him to agree, Waylander does so, even though he is assured of almost certain death in the attempt.

While David Gemmell clearly has some understanding of the elements of a good story, his execution into the written word is clumsy at best. There is rarely any sense of setting, and then when there is, it is insufficient for the reader to feel they are present. Many of the characters are poorly defined and indistinguishable from each other. Some minor characters seem to have received more development than they should, while some major characters languished from neglect. Dialogue was short and sharp, with no identifying characteristics to identify the speaker; it suffered from ‘talking heads syndrome’ and the characters were indistinguishable. Some characters act in ways which defy logic or reason, apparently behaving in that way solely because it suited the author. The romance is handled clumsily, and the characters fall into each other’s arms with a suddenness that is unconvincing. In fact, I was more convinced she’d happily cut his throat and never shed a tear.

Some of the most interesting parts of the book are Waylander’s explanation of the nature of fear, and his philosophical attitude towards it, and Dardalion’s exposition on why taking up arms in defence of the innocent is more of a sacrifice than merely allowing himself to be killed for the benefit of no one.

While I was not impressed with the book this time around, I did enjoy it a lot more when I was a teenager, and David Gemmell is amazingly popular, so his books do appeal to a certain audience. If you’re in your teens, or simply enjoy your fantasy straightforward, uncomplicated and limited to a single book, this may still be worth your time.

Ciara is a writer of high fantasy. A fantasy lover from her early years, this loyal, passionate, quirky, strong-willed, confident woman is bent on world domination and already has a couple of minions in the making. Born argumentative and recognising the long road to make money out of writing, Ciara wisely invested her natural inclinations in a career in law. Her favourite authors include Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan and Brent Weeks. She is the official dragon expert of #stabbylove.

More information about Ciara Ballintyne can be found on www.ciaraballintyne.com

Waylander Book Review by Dionne Lister

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Australia, Authors, Book Club, Book Publishers, Book Publishing, Book Review, Books, Ciara Ballintyne, Club Fantasci, Dark Fantasy, David Gemmell, David Lowry, Dionne Lister, dystopian, Epic, Epic Fantasy, Erotica, Fantasy, Horror, Indie authors, Lycans, Militaristic Science Fiction, Monsters, Nashville, Paranormal, Reading, Romance, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Steampunk, Supernatural, Supernatural Romance, The Lowry Agency, urban fantasy, Vampires, Waylander, Werewolves, Wine, Writers

This book starts with action and keeps up the pace pretty much the whole way through. I did enjoy the book because I liked the characters, however there were many things that irked me, which was a surprise because for years I had seen David Gemmell’s books around and always though I should read this author’s work.

I found the dialogue unnatural. The characters spoke in a stilted, clipped fashion, which would normally indicate anger, or that the person wants the conversation to end as soon as possible.

The amount of typos was irritating. It is normal to find a handful of things that slip through the proofreading cracks, but this was ridiculous, especially for a traditionally published, supposedly big-name author. Several times whole words were incorrect—one sentence had “it it” instead of “to it” for instance. Quotation marks were frequently left out, either before or after speech, and a couple of times I came across whole sentences that just didn’t make sense.

I found the way Waylander was saved on two occasions to be too contrived and convenient and the way the book ended was disappointing—not only were there massive tragedies (overdone I feel) that didn’t make me shed one tear, but the ending was over within three or four pages. It was almost as if it was a screenplay, not a novel.

A positive thing was that I had a good sense of the personality of Waylander and I wanted his character to survive. I would say this is an okay read, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a book you need to rush out and read.

Dionne Lister

Dionne is an author and editor from Sydney who loves reading (obviously) and playing sport. She co-hosts a humorous podcast called Tweep Nation where she interviews authors and discusses all things Twitter. She loves writing and sharing her stories, but she wishes they wouldn’t keep her awake at night.

More information about Dionne Lister can be found here: www.dionnelisterwriter.wordpress.com