Full disclosure, I did not finish the first look. I just could not, to many issues.
First the good, the main character is mute. I really like it when people who are disabled are a main characters, and not side lined. Very inclusive. Kudos!
Now the bad.... The bad guys. They make no sense. They are a corporation, who is taking over a continent, and they are 1 peninsula of a country short of doing just that. And when they take a place over, they turn some or all of the inhabitants into zombie like things called ghosts. Why would a corp do that? It has no benefit to a corporation. Corporations needs customers to make money. Zombies don't spend money. I guess if they only turn some into ghosts, and they use those to expand their territory then that could be useful. But it is described that the ghosts hunt humans. Like they hunt any and all humans. So wherever ghosts are, humans are eaten. And ghosts are on the entire continent except the peninsula the main character is residing in. Also it is mentioned that the corporation has tried to siege this last country before, and failed. So their is some intelligent life left in corp controlled land, but the ghosts still just don't make much sense.
Also, said siege, implies that the country needs to trade goods to survive, with other countries. But it is stated from the beginning that the land between the corporation's land, and the last country's land, is no mans land patrolled by strikers (good guy mega warriors) and ghosts. And that is it. No trade caravans of any kind or form. Also you would not do trade with your enemy. So that doesn't make sense to begin with.
The strikers I have no real problem with, just some of their weaponry was not thought out, and that really bugged me. When they were doing a weapons check, they described the metal of their daggers as a "near indestructible metal". No name for it or anything. Just a description of nearly indestructible generic metal. It obviously has some reverence in the society, because it was mentioned specifically, and metal workers were mentioned specifically too, but it got no name. Pretty much all of our alloys of we use IRL have names. from lofty historic names like Damascus steel, to run of the mill names, like zinc carbide or, high carbon steel. Just give the metal a name! The society would have, and its not that hard to either research out a very high strength metal or make a name up!
The last straw for me was when I read the sentence that started with "We had two sniper pistols". No, just no. Pistols are short range, close quarters weapons. Sniper weapons are ranged weapons. They have a long barrel to aid with accuracy. And they have a high caliber round with a large explosive charge to send the projectile a great distance, and also aid accuracy. They have a "butt" that rests against your shoulder, so you can fire the weapon without hurting yourself. You can't have all those things in a pistol. If you had a longer barrel, with a higher than usual explosive charge and a larger caliber, it would not be very effective because, you would have a very hard time keeping the barrel level whilst holding the pistol up, And then when you fired the pistol your wrist would be somewhere between sprained (and unable to fire again, and in lots of pain) and totally destroyed/broke! (also unable to fire again and in pain, lots of pain!!). Because the recoil on sniper weapon is a semi truck of an impact, that will hurt your shoulder if fired enough too! Sure you could say you had a high precision pistol, and simply say that the pistols they had are very accurate, and that would be very believable, because that is a real thing. But I highly doubt anyone who handles guns professionally would ever call a pistol a weapon to snipe with.
All that being said I did only get a few pages in before bailing, but I will still mark this book down as one I want to get a copy of. And if I do win it I will read the whole thing and give a in-depth review.
Also this book gets a whole star added just for having the main character being mute. We need more inclusivity in stories!!
First the good, the main character is mute. I really like it when people who are disabled are a main characters, and not side lined. Very inclusive. Kudos!
Now the bad.... The bad guys. They make no sense. They are a corporation, who is taking over a continent, and they are 1 peninsula of a country short of doing just that. And when they take a place over, they turn some or all of the inhabitants into zombie like things called ghosts. Why would a corp do that? It has no benefit to a corporation. Corporations needs customers to make money. Zombies don't spend money. I guess if they only turn some into ghosts, and they use those to expand their territory then that could be useful. But it is described that the ghosts hunt humans. Like they hunt any and all humans. So wherever ghosts are, humans are eaten. And ghosts are on the entire continent except the peninsula the main character is residing in. Also it is mentioned that the corporation has tried to siege this last country before, and failed. So their is some intelligent life left in corp controlled land, but the ghosts still just don't make much sense.
Also, said siege, implies that the country needs to trade goods to survive, with other countries. But it is stated from the beginning that the land between the corporation's land, and the last country's land, is no mans land patrolled by strikers (good guy mega warriors) and ghosts. And that is it. No trade caravans of any kind or form. Also you would not do trade with your enemy. So that doesn't make sense to begin with.
The strikers I have no real problem with, just some of their weaponry was not thought out, and that really bugged me. When they were doing a weapons check, they described the metal of their daggers as a "near indestructible metal". No name for it or anything. Just a description of nearly indestructible generic metal. It obviously has some reverence in the society, because it was mentioned specifically, and metal workers were mentioned specifically too, but it got no name. Pretty much all of our alloys of we use IRL have names. from lofty historic names like Damascus steel, to run of the mill names, like zinc carbide or, high carbon steel. Just give the metal a name! The society would have, and its not that hard to either research out a very high strength metal or make a name up!
The last straw for me was when I read the sentence that started with "We had two sniper pistols". No, just no. Pistols are short range, close quarters weapons. Sniper weapons are ranged weapons. They have a long barrel to aid with accuracy. And they have a high caliber round with a large explosive charge to send the projectile a great distance, and also aid accuracy. They have a "butt" that rests against your shoulder, so you can fire the weapon without hurting yourself. You can't have all those things in a pistol. If you had a longer barrel, with a higher than usual explosive charge and a larger caliber, it would not be very effective because, you would have a very hard time keeping the barrel level whilst holding the pistol up, And then when you fired the pistol your wrist would be somewhere between sprained (and unable to fire again, and in lots of pain) and totally destroyed/broke! (also unable to fire again and in pain, lots of pain!!). Because the recoil on sniper weapon is a semi truck of an impact, that will hurt your shoulder if fired enough too! Sure you could say you had a high precision pistol, and simply say that the pistols they had are very accurate, and that would be very believable, because that is a real thing. But I highly doubt anyone who handles guns professionally would ever call a pistol a weapon to snipe with.
All that being said I did only get a few pages in before bailing, but I will still mark this book down as one I want to get a copy of. And if I do win it I will read the whole thing and give a in-depth review.
Also this book gets a whole star added just for having the main character being mute. We need more inclusivity in stories!!