Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Chasers of the Wind (Cycle of Wind and Sparks #1) (ARC)


Chasers of the Wind - Alexey Pehov I received this copy from the publisher through Netgalley.com and that in no way has influenced my opinion in regards to this review.

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.com by express permission of this reviewer


Synopsis:
One kingdom of humans, who use not-bad magic [not to be confused with good, mind you!] are being invaded by a kingdom of renegades that use bad, necromantic, evil, etc, etc, etc magic.
Follows several pairings/groupings of people who were caught on the border of the conflict, who all have their own problems in addition to invading demon thingies, zombies and magicians who will eat you.

My Thoughts:
First off, this guy, Pehov, is Russian. So this is a translated work. Which is why I finished the book instead of DNF'ing it. I'm going to blame most of my issues on the translator, but my resolve to not read anything else by Pehov is on his shoulders alone.

This was choppy writing. Short sentences that should have been rewritten into one longer, well constructed sentence. I had saved a couple of particular egregious examples, but then by the end I didn't care enough to go back and copy them out. Maybe in Russian it made sense for sword choppingly short sentences, but certainly not in English. It made Pehov sound like an amateur [and yes, I know I used the word "sound" in regards to the written word *wink*].

However, what annoyed me the most, and was all the author, was that ONE character was written in the First person, while everybody else was in the Third. It doesn't sound like much, but trust me, when you go from a limited "I" point of view to an Omniscient narrative "they" and back,  it is really jarring. And that was deliberate, nothing to do with the translator.

The plot was ok, with a good back story waiting to be explored and a good amount of magical and mundane fighting. In many ways it reminded me of Eddings and his love of groups, just without the humor.

But it "feels" like amateur writing and I refuse to numb my reading skills. Let's just say Pehov's no Dostoyevsky. That being said, you won't have wasted your time if you try this. Perhaps just not spent it as wisely as you "could have".


Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Author: Alexey Pehov

No comments:

Post a Comment