The Good
What captured me in the beginning
A. the mystery
B. the language
C. the setting
D. the way the world is set up
All of it accumulated to this new world and mystery. I saw the language as a mystery to decode alongside the overall mystery of what happened.
The Bad
-The reveals
At first the mystery was enticing but as the story progressed it lost steam for me.
A. Too many reveals in one book?
B. Reveals were not landing right.
Are the reveals going to go anywhere interesting? On paper the reveals are interesting but the execution was lacking.
They were not landing right because they were not layed out in a flourish or in moments that felt right. It felt like the main character was like randomly having a epiphany about everything – there was no lead up to the reveals.
C. Real convenient
I have heard other reviewers say it felt like we did not get enough time to process the events- agreed. Also, I feel it felt like reveals were put in to fix story stuff in the aftermath. Like we hit a wall with x thing so let me make y happen.
Do all the reveals make sense looking at the entire story?
-Weird about race?
I think this is the start of what turned me off of the story (I had to reread the first 5 or 6 chapters because I got it from Bookishfirst for free so I was reading it like wait so Lew-Eadin is brown, wait is he not the one who Andra said she’ll call him what she wants not what he prefers, wait isn’t he the one who lost his arm because of the pocket).
A. Andra told Lew-Eadin she was not going to call him what he preferred to be called, Wead. I know it was probably supposed to be a joke but it rubbed me the wrong way.
B. Why did Lew-Eadin have to lose his arm, leave his family, and die for the main characters (I know Andra is biracial, still)
Then he is the help.
C. It killed multiple people of color for the main characters.
D. It felt like the people of color were wallpapered in the background.
-Repetitive
A. Repeated the same assassination attempt (at least 3 times) with the same resolution for said attempt.
B. Repeated the same putting person into cryogenic sleep at least three times.
That would have made the story lose some of its shock or punch if I had not already been underwhelmed by the rest of it.
The Meh
I did not start off disliking the language- for me it added to the mystery and the world at first but after a while it felt like it was just there making story draggy.
Thoughts
I am finding myself more interested in the “bad” royal brother we are not supposed to like than love interest disinherited brother. A lot of nuance/perspective is lost by making the royal brothers automatically bad guys instead of exploring them ruling an entire kingdom.
We need to explore alternatives to court intrigue in sf&f.
There are going to be consequences to the push for less expansive shorter stories. One of the issues we are probably going to come up against is with all these duologies is that there are stories that have so much twist and story that may be too much for even a trilogy.
(prediction for this story: Maret was being corrupted by something in crown he was wearing. Tsurina is not the main villain technology/rogue AI is- it is the reason that they never left earth and why the dome failed.)
What captured me in the beginning
A. the mystery
B. the language
C. the setting
D. the way the world is set up
All of it accumulated to this new world and mystery. I saw the language as a mystery to decode alongside the overall mystery of what happened.
The Bad
-The reveals
At first the mystery was enticing but as the story progressed it lost steam for me.
A. Too many reveals in one book?
B. Reveals were not landing right.
Are the reveals going to go anywhere interesting? On paper the reveals are interesting but the execution was lacking.
They were not landing right because they were not layed out in a flourish or in moments that felt right. It felt like the main character was like randomly having a epiphany about everything – there was no lead up to the reveals.
C. Real convenient
I have heard other reviewers say it felt like we did not get enough time to process the events- agreed. Also, I feel it felt like reveals were put in to fix story stuff in the aftermath. Like we hit a wall with x thing so let me make y happen.
Do all the reveals make sense looking at the entire story?
-Weird about race?
I think this is the start of what turned me off of the story (I had to reread the first 5 or 6 chapters because I got it from Bookishfirst for free so I was reading it like wait so Lew-Eadin is brown, wait is he not the one who Andra said she’ll call him what she wants not what he prefers, wait isn’t he the one who lost his arm because of the pocket).
A. Andra told Lew-Eadin she was not going to call him what he preferred to be called, Wead. I know it was probably supposed to be a joke but it rubbed me the wrong way.
B. Why did Lew-Eadin have to lose his arm, leave his family, and die for the main characters (I know Andra is biracial, still)
Then he is the help.
C. It killed multiple people of color for the main characters.
D. It felt like the people of color were wallpapered in the background.
-Repetitive
A. Repeated the same assassination attempt (at least 3 times) with the same resolution for said attempt.
B. Repeated the same putting person into cryogenic sleep at least three times.
That would have made the story lose some of its shock or punch if I had not already been underwhelmed by the rest of it.
The Meh
I did not start off disliking the language- for me it added to the mystery and the world at first but after a while it felt like it was just there making story draggy.
Thoughts
I am finding myself more interested in the “bad” royal brother we are not supposed to like than love interest disinherited brother. A lot of nuance/perspective is lost by making the royal brothers automatically bad guys instead of exploring them ruling an entire kingdom.
We need to explore alternatives to court intrigue in sf&f.
There are going to be consequences to the push for less expansive shorter stories. One of the issues we are probably going to come up against is with all these duologies is that there are stories that have so much twist and story that may be too much for even a trilogy.
(prediction for this story: Maret was being corrupted by something in crown he was wearing. Tsurina is not the main villain technology/rogue AI is- it is the reason that they never left earth and why the dome failed.)