I do this thing sometimes where I search Amazon Prime for the odd, extreme sales and let fate and random algorithms sell me a cheap, surprise book. Eve Langlais‘ Steampunk Cyborg came into my hand in this manner.
When a friend drags Agatha “Aggie” Bowles to a romance convention, all she wants to do is find some new authors and a quiet spot to read. Instead of relaxing with a book, she ends up kidnapped by a steampunk cyborg.
Which is as exciting as it sounds.
Except for the fact he’s more interested in the cog hanging around her neck than Aggie herself. He’ll do anything to get his hands on it. Problem is other people want it, too.
Can this cyborg relinquish a priceless treasure for love?
This was utterly ridiculous. In one sense I can’t really fault it for that. It’s absolutely not supposed to be anything else. This is written to be cotton candy enjoyment with no depth or subtly. But in another sense, I have to admit there just wasn’t enough here to keep me interested.
Oddly, if there was more sex in it, I might call it Porn With Plot, and thus say it’s exactly what it set out to be. But there’s really not much sex in it at all. The thing with Porn With Plot books is that you don’t expect much more than an outline of a plot to hang the sex on. The Porn is the primary component, the With Plot secondary. This has about the same amount of plotting, but not the sex, which leaves it feeling flimsy at best.
The mechanical writing and editing is pretty good though. It’s certainly readable. Just maybe not for me.
The king is dead, long live his murderer. After fifteen years of passive torment, Farrah and her implacable group of renegades endeavour to alter their fates by attempting to assassinate the man who stole everything from them, Daemon Daromas. Alas, he who wields the theurgy of the gods has no rivals in the lands of Iscar but those foolish enough to challenge their wrath.
When confronted by this ancient and destructive force, the renegades have no choice but to flee the capital and embark on the airship of Iscar’s most notorious sky corsair Captain Feras Sadahl, daughter of the late pirate sovereign. Their meeting with the corsair, however, might not have been as welcome as they would have hoped.
As Farrah and her allies set out on a journey to find the means to challenge their oppressor, they soon discover that the price of power is steep and the road to get one’s hands on it, perilous.
It took me forever and a day to finish this book. Granted, it’s a long book. But I’m a really fast, obsessive reader and generally prefer to read one book at a time. But if I’m not particularly grabbed by one, I sometimes let myself take a break and read something else between chapters. How many books I splice in while reading one can be taken as a signifier of how much I’m enjoying a book (or not). In the case of A Flight in the Heavens I read something like 16! Well, I listened to most of them (but that’s mostly because it’s the format that was available to me). There are a myriad of reason, none of which are that the book is horrible.
But before I get into the criticisms, let me drop some positives. A Flight in the Heavens is epic in scope. Both because it’s 509 pages long and because at the end of 509 pages, the over-arching plot has barely started (though it comes to a natural stopping point). It’s a big world, with some interesting characters. I truly liked Faras and Farrah and wanted them to accomplish their goal. And every once in a while Gagne-Cyr would give us some fabulously vivid imagery, like, “Essan and Thorick had been going at each other’s throats in a peculiar duel resembling the portrait of a lethal insect attempting to sting a bear.” But none of that was enough to keep me interested.
The problem is that the book is about 200 pages longer than it needs to be. It too wordy. (See the insect and bear line above. I love the analogy, but the sentence if wordier than it needs to be.) It’s too repetitive (we’re told the same information multiple times), too dependent on exposition, and too FULL of awkward word usages. For me, this last was the biggest challenge. I almost always knew what Gagne-Cyr meant, but the language is jarringly inaccurate.
Here are a few of the last ones I remember, “…trying not to make eye contact with the soaring utensil…” How do you make eye contact with a spoon that has no eyes? Or, “he snarled in a delighted tone of voice…” I mean, I suppose it’s possible, but a snarl usually accompanies anger or hatred. “…shattered the skin of his midsection.” The verb shatter infers something brittle or crystalline breaking, skin is supple. I can’t imagine it shattering. Again, I know what all of these sentences meant and they might not even be technically wrong, but every single one pulled me from the narrative. And there was one on most pages, which meant I never could just sink into the story and coast along. I was always restarting and loosing gumption.
Though I think an additional editor could have helped tighten the narrative and help Gagne-Cyr with the awkward word choices, I have to admit the book seems really clean in terms of mechanical edits. I don’t really remember any typo or missing word sort of errors. So, in the end, I think this is just going to be a matter of taste. Either you like Gagne-Cyr’s creative use of language or it distracts you from the reading (as it did me). Only one way to find out, really, give it a try.
I consider this a little less than ideal. I read Lindsay Buroker‘s Mist and Magic and Sinister Magic. I picked them up as Amazon freebies. Then, I borrowed Battle Bond, Tangled Truths, Elven Doom, The Forbidden Ground, False Security, and Storm Forged from Hoopla in audio format. However, I listened to them while traveling. I didn’t have easy access to my computer to write individual reviews ,as I finished each one, which is my preference. So, I’m going to write a single review for the whole series (or at least book .5 through book 6, which is as far as I got). This isn’t how I usually like to do things, but such is life sometimes.
I’m Val Thorvald, and I’m an assassin.
When magical bad guys hurt people, I take care of them. Permanently.
This doesn’t make me popular with the rest of the magical community—as you can tell from the numerous break-ins and assassination attempts I’ve endured over the years. But thanks to my half-elven blood, a powerful sword named Chopper, and a telepathic tiger with an attitude, I’ve always been able to handle my problems with aplomb. Maybe some cursing and swearing, too, but definitely aplomb.
I’ve read several of Buroker’s books by now and enjoyed them all. The Death Before Dragons series is no exception. I really liked Val and her sarcasm, especially when she bantered with Willard. I loved that she was over 40, even if the fact that she didn’t look it kind of made it only half as satisfying as it would be to have a 40yo heroine who looked her age too. I adored that Val was biologically a mother, but not maternal or raising her child. This is a reality authors very rarely allow female characters, especially ones we’re supposed to like. I appreciate the diversity of the cast. And each of the books wrapped up nicely, which I prefer over an overarching plot where you have to read the whole series to get any conclusive satisfaction. All in all, I would be happy to continue the series.
I did have a few complaints. Some of the humor was over the top silly at times. There was a running joke about the shoes the hero wore and if they made him look gay or not, which trod a little too close to a gay joke for my taste (pun intended). This was somewhat mitigated by a loved and important gay character (who wasn’t cliched). But it shouldn’t be a tit for tat situation. Similarly, Val’s refusal to learn to pronounce the dragons’ names was a sign of rebellion, but it also reminded me a lot of Westerners who can learn to pronounce Dostoevsky but not names from the African continent. Uncomfortably close to a problem, close enough to recognize, but not quite there.
Lastly, I liked Zav and appreciated him as a love interest, but I never truly felt the passion. There was only one sex scene and it was fade to black, so I suppose passion wasn’t the point. But I might have liked to feel the love more strongly.
I stopped at book six because that’s the last the library had. But if I came across book 7 I’d happily read it. But I’m not sad to have a break here either.
This was utterly ridiculous. In one sense I can’t really fault it for that. It’s absolutely not supposed to be anything else. This is written to be cotton candy enjoyment with no depth or subtly. But in another sense, I have to admit there just wasn’t enough here to keep me interested.
