Tag Archives: dystopian

Demon Ember

Book Review of Demon Ember (Resurrection Chronicles #1), by M.J. Haag & Becca Vincenza

I won a signed copy of Demon Ember, by M.J. Hagg and Becca Vincenza, through Goodreads.

Description:
Mya’s world is falling apart. After a series of earthquakes, deadly animals with glowing red eyes begin attacking people and start the spread of a zombie-like plague. Safety is just a memory as she tries to make her way home. When a different creature attacks the people helping her reach Oklahoma City, Mya is sure she’ll never see the light of another day. Despite his eerie green eyes and very sharp teeth, the grey-skinned creature is more intelligent and humanlike than he first appears. He’s determined to keep Mya by his side and protect her from the new world’s dangers. When his path starts taking her further away from home, she must choose between safety and her family.

Review with a slight spoiler:
Basically entertaining, but not much more. So, Mya decides to cross the zombie and hellhound infested state to get home to her family (without verifying they’ll be there). Along the way she runs into Drav, a large, human-like creature who decides he’s going to protect the female at all costs (without asking if she’s interested in this). That’s the plot…all of it. The book is basically just them running from one place to another and Drove defeating anything that threatens Mya. There really isn’t a lot to it in terms of development or explanations. You are left with a lot of questions in the end (which is a cliffhanger).

Drav can conveniently learn a language by hearing a word once, so the whole communication thing is easily dismissed. And he’s sweet. I liked Drav. Once he could understand her instructions, he was scrupulously attentive to Mya’s demands not to touch her (consent, basically). I liked that. Mya wasn’t particularly adept at survival, but not too stupid to live either. So, I was fine with Mya.

My issue arrises from the fact that he decides to protect her because he’s never seen a female before. There’s nothing inherently special about Mya herself that makes him take interest in her. He’s pretty much just protecting the pussy or womb. He of course falls in love and I imagine Mya will in future books, but when you get right down to it, this isn’t about Mya as a person.

All in all, I enjoyed the book. There were some funny bits. Like the meta scene where the large, fanged, grey-skinned man with pointed ears getting his hands on a Ruby Dixon novel. I’d be more than willing to read the rest of the series.

Book Review of For the Clan, by Archer Kay Leah

For the ClanI received an e-copy of For the Clan, by Archer Kay Leah, from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Canada, 2165 AD. The Water Wars and a decimated economy have taken their toll. Anyone who doesn’t live in a military-patrolled metropolis lives in a clan. But being in a clan doesn’t mean safety.

And for a Ven like Roan Lee, it doesn’t matter where he lives. Safety is a luxury. So is freedom.

Roan is desperate to escape the governtary’s exploitation and torture. He is nothing to them but 54σK1, an artifact born from a genetic mishap. When the chance to escape arises, he makes a run for it—and encounters the lover from his past, twisting his future into a second chance he never expected.

As leaders of Clan Teach, Jace Ama and his wife, Cayra Diega, have enough difficulty keeping their people safe. When Roan is thrown to their feet as a prisoner, their marriage becomes an additional challenge. Jace still loves Roan, but where does that leave Cayra?

Review:
I enjoyed this a lot, but I think it took the easy path at almost every turn. I liked the dystopian future that is believably and recognizably the result of current world politics. But we learn very little about it. The metropolises and goventary remain faceless throughout the book. I liked the ven’s magical abilities, but we’re just basically told they exist and little more. I have no understanding of limitations or how any of it works. I liked the triad that formed between the main characters, but it was established far too easily. There was no palpable angst, nervousness, or jealousy at any point from anyone and everyone else just accepted it. I like the final stand the characters made, but it was resolved by a convenient and unexpected interloper. I liked the HEA, but it’s hard to believe that one little fight (and it was small by goventary standards) would really make anyone safe in the long run. (In fact, I’d suspect the opposite.) None the less, it was presented as having won the war, not just the battle.

All in all, it was an interesting story, with interesting characters and it flowed well. It just didn’t flow very deeply.

Towers

Book Review of Towers, by Matthew Bryant

TowersAuthor, Matthew Bryant, sent me an ecopy of his novel, Towers. (I’ve also seen it on the KDP free list.)

Description from Goodreads:
The next job, the next fix, the next thrill has been the mindset of Heath Fallows since the day he abandoned his broken home for the harsher call of the streets. But being a homeless thief in a conglomerate society will only get you so far, and he soon finds himself surviving by skirting outside of business infrastructure. 

A career of breaking and entering and drug-peddling is brought to a screeching halt when a successful job leads to being chased down by a supernatural entity and left for dead. 

Working outside of his traditional networks, Heath is forced to dig deeper into the underbelly of society, locked closets of high culture, and the deadly unknown beyond the district boundaries to uncover what he overlooked and the truth behind the towers of corporate dominance.

Review:
I don’t often use star ratings here, but I think, in this case, it will help me make a point about how I feel. I’m really torn between a three-star and a four-star (out of five). Certainly, the writing is good enough to qualify for a four-star rating, with few editing mishaps to detract from what is just a wonderful use of language to tell a story. However, that story is somewhat on the vague side.

It’s action-packed. What feels like a good 80% of the book is dedicated running, fighting, blowing things us, etc. In all honesty, it got old. I needed something to break it up, even as well-written as it was. But all that action leaves little time for figuring out what is going on. Even as I reached the end, I was still wondering what exactly was happening and why exactly the main character took the particular, extreme actions he did. It’s not that his actions didn’t make sense, given that someone was trying to kill him, it just that there was so little time dedicated to exploring the situation that it felt like he leapt from one baseless decision to the next.

The book is a strange blend of cyber/techno-thriller and Mad Max-style dystopia. It made for an interesting world. However, that world, while described well, isn’t well developed. I was left with a lot of questions about it, like, for example, what the ‘ancients’ actually are. I did appreciate its harsh grittiness and some of the gender perverting that happened around the Barron Junkers, but as with everything else, I felt cheated of the details.

All in all, this is a true 3.5. Giving it a three feels like I’d cheat it of well-earned praise, but a four feels like an inflated score. *sigh*