A manperson

Overlong, repetitive, little to no diff. between some chars

Revisado: 06-14-24

Nearly all the characters now speak the same way. No personality other than stilted declarations and observations; they talk like an essay written by a precocious teen reads.

Author is longwinded in describing simple interactions. The plot, fine in itself, is drawn out far too long, which draws attention to the poor prose.

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Overlong, overwritten, poor "British" narration

Revisado: 02-20-23

Decent premise, but completely infantile execution: unfailingly good and progressive main character, a host of one-dimensional side characters, nigh on every kind act is well received, good nature taken advantage of an entire one time, and one-dimensional baddies fail utterly and present no real threat.

The narrator isn't English and it shows. No British person would pronounce the word sabotaged "sabotoged" or sorry "saurry". It takes me right out of the story. While it is commendable that he reads all the constantly recurring fantasy names consistently and with in-world "mock-british" pronunciation, their make-up and frequency make the stilted and unnatural, even in the context of a court drama.

I don't mind the author making up new words for everything in her fantasy world, but their constant and unnatural use sounds forced. The fish out of water is hard a new take on court drama but every single action the new emperor takes raises eyebrows and every time he cringes and wrings his hands. The slightest progressive idea, like intimating that perhaps women aren't just wives and baby machines is taken as tantamount to insanity. The emperor's character arc, shallow and predictable as it is, is ten hours of him trying to find his voice before his big "Wait, I'm the emperor" moment, with basically NO GROWTH in between.

If this book were half as long, it might be passable. As it is, it is in dire need of cutting for length and pacing.

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Decent naïvist SF marred by terrible accent

Revisado: 01-29-23

First person narrative told from the perspective of an Artificial Friend. Many timely and interesting themes. The narrator's attempt at British English is terrible and really took me out of the story. Otherwise decent if slightly slow narration.

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Meandering

Revisado: 11-15-22

Two stories with basically no overlap. Both over long and only marginally satisfying. A few interesting solutions to story problems, but mostly uninteresting. Not that it feels predictable, just dull. O'Malley is also falling over himself to list wild, inventive powers and it really grates after a while.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Painfully artless, begs actual editing

Revisado: 04-16-22

This should be titled "Her Next Mister" or something equally trite. It is overlong, repetitive, and reads like a fourteen-year old quoting filler episodes of a high school drama. Simply put, it is poorly written and shoddily edited.

The premise is interesting: A group of six must sacrifice one of their number to gain admittance to a secret society. Sadly, the story consists almost exclusively of stilted dialogue: either childish "will they/won't they" exchanges or puerile sexual advances that make the characters sound like they've never had an actual adult conversation. I suppose this is less conspicuous to someone consuming this chapter by chapter, week by week. Hence, shame on the editor.

There is virtually no magic in this book. This would not be problem, except that it is part of the central conceit of the plot. Then again, in this book, virtually nothing happens. The entire story boils down to: There is a cast of laughably generic characters, who are occasionally in the same room, and the evil masterminds are tangentially related to them. The evil mastermind is bad, the other is not. That is all that happens.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Weird pronunciations + disappointing story

Revisado: 07-02-20

What others have written is true: The narrator starts off reading at lost eight words at a time and has some pronunciations which the producer, laughably, has not helped her with. Heretic becomes 'herettic', ewer becomes 'ooer', thou becomes 'thoo', ensign becomes 'N-sine', briny becomes 'brinny'. The accents themselves are fine, just... of varying quality.

The story itself is so basic it could be the plot of a nineties high fantasy movie, but at least partially dodges the Chosen One trope. The world is a hard gender bend, so it's mostly female leads and significant characters, which is great. It's fantasy, I have no problem believing that there are as many powerful females as there are males. Or significantly more. My credulity is a bit stretched when there are as many female dragonriders and knights of the body as there are male ones. But in this world, women and men are of equal strength, and good going.
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So it's disappointing when two of the female characters just have to be together, in strict adherence to the outdated genre trope of romance being more important than friendship. Its great to read fantasy with more than one token queer romance, just sad that it takes 500 pages to feel like a 10 page fanfic.
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The cherry on top is when the underlying message is literally just spelled out: Maybe women are good for more than just having babies. YES. GOOD JOB. Does the author have any faith in us readers at all?

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Lyrical as usual, but far too drawn out

Revisado: 04-10-20

North's ornate descriptions grow tedious in this overly drawn out castigation of colonial barbarism and capitalist exploitation. The main character is basically without agency and we spend a lot of time waiting for a denouement that never comes.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Decent conceit, disappointing execution

Revisado: 09-14-19

This is a short story spin on 1984 and should have stayed at that length.

SPOILERESQUE:
It starts off as a straight ripoff of 1984, then goes on a long journey rife with incongruities and plot holes, not to mention plot armour unjustified by the underlying concept.

No numbers are allowed except for 58.... and most character names. One character has had access to cultural elements that make no sense given the end of the story, made worse when the main character also suffers sudden bouts of modern culture... that apparently died 300 years ago.

The two possible endings are obvious halfway through, and getting there is an exercise in filler episode TV. The feeling of encroaching doom afforded by the actual story feels misspent, undermined by the constant rehashing of blah action, unnamed character deaths and inevitable main character survival.

The character dynamics start off natural, but remain one-dimensional and are resolved with laughable "you're my brother"/"we've gotta keep going" dialogue.

I absolutely accept that an allegorical story often will not be able to maintain its conceit, but this is a poor showing.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Bereft of metaphor, appallingly flat

Revisado: 09-06-19

Downright patronising explanations line a predictable story bereft of any artful use of language. The characters all speak like modern people and the plot is something we've seen any number of times before. This might be the basis of any actually engaging novel, if the reader at any point were challenged by anything beyond a two-syllable word and the notion that the French also suffered during WW2.

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Excellent.

Revisado: 06-05-19

Possibly a future Tom Holt or even Terry Pratchett. Amusing and blatant real-world references, elegant handling of tropes, refreshing take on many fantasy/D&d classics. Easily overlooked the few odd pronunciations from the narrator, who does an otherwise great job with pacing and expression. Simply a pleasure.

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