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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, March 21, 2008 | |
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Book Review: Memories of Empire, by Django Wexler (SPOILERS) This book focuses on a girl who travels with a powerful swordsman as he attempts to regain his memories and find out who he is, and where he got his sword. On the way she begins to be addressed, helped, and manipulated by an ice spirit. Meanwhile, other spirits (of shadow, fire, and light) manipulate other people in a grand battle for power World: The story takes place in a former dynasty now overthrown by conquerors. It's generally believable, although there are not enough details about how the world works to say for sure. There are some details concerning the conquering peoples, who now inhabit most of the land, but for the most part these things are ignored. I'd like to see more on: the slave trade (what kind of people use slaves? It seems to be pretty common to buy and sell slaves but no one OWNS them or uses them); the type of farming; what kind of business comes in on the river; etc. Characters: A few too many female characters are "barely flesh over bone," and of the 7 or so we come to know, only 2 of them ever have sex-drives. for shame! That aside, Corvus is kind of interesting but tends to be a little paper-cut-out (c'mon, he kills things with swords, and doesn't know about his past. What more does one need?); Veil grows to be more 3 dimensional as the story goes on (I like her 'capture-playing' ability) but she tends to stay the "helpless virgin," more afraid of being raped than dying, and only in the end manages to handle some weaponry. Zhin is woefully underdeveloped, outside of his love-interest in Isobel. And Isobel could really stand to have more development. She's supposedly had a lifestyle similar to Revy's from Black Lagoon (in a fantasy-world sense), but that's a superficial layer that covers what could be deeper details inside. Kit and Kei get the most deep background development, with whole flashback sections and plenty of room for witty dialogue; but even though this is the case, I didn't find myself very interested in them. Maybe it's because they rode the draeks, and I wanted more about the draeks but never really got that... or because I didn't understand the role they played until much later in the text. Plot: More interesting than I originally expected; that is, very little to do with saving the dynasty from the conquerors, or any of that. Instead, the story gradually becomes more oriented around the demons or spirits that are interacting with the humans. The humans eventually become pawns and have to fight their way free of their respective spirit controllers in various ways. It ended with a "save the world" twist, of which I disapprove on principle, but which was not too disruptive. other comments, impressions: One of the most irritating features of this text is the number of typos present. I'm not sure if I should write to the publisher and complain--things like misspelled words and misplaced punctuation, with the addition of lines that run together and some lack of paragraph breaking are not a significant part of the story, and yet I feel like they have their place and without them it's as if the company didn't try at all. In general these stories remind me a very little bit of David Eddings' Belgariad; that is, it tends to 'tell' instead of 'show,' being very heavy on the exposition. All in all, I don't think this book was worth the $8 investment and I'm going to resell it. It's a pity I got sucked in by the beautiful cover, interesting opening, and fascinating title (listen, I thought it might be like Fire Logic and be about learning to live after being conquered). |
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My Other Writing Sites | |
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Stories I'm currently working on. | |
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***Tbook1 (Time and Chaos, needs a new name, needs to be edited) ***Book of Sun (Just needs to be edited. Tis a Nano novel) ***Book of Whispers part 1 (Does not jive at all with part 2; needs to be rewritten to fit and to have less suckage) ***Book of Whispers part 2 (Needs some rehaul editing, needs some loose ends tied up, needs to fit) ***Book of Whispers part 3 (Needs to be finished... then needs to die o.o Not sure if I need a third part in the series) ***Dium's Story (Needs a point, progress, anything... needs to be integrated into Tbook1, since that is what it is a part of, mainly) ***Trio Story with Jackie and Louise (Maybe we should get together and work on this, guys) ***Demon Story (This is working out pretty good so far. I like the plot, it's a bit convoluted, and the characters are interesting) ***New Witch Story (It's only 30 pages long, dang) ***Dragon's Voices (This has SO much potential! wee!) | |
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