Rhiannon
3.5/5⭐, rounded up
The good: an exciting premise, amazing artwork (this would make an excellent full graphic novel) and the cool added extras of music references that has caused me to add a lot of new music to my playlists.
This alternate-history mashup of sci-fi, horror, and 80s cold war thriller comes complete with rampaging monsters and genetically engineered soldiers battling over mankind’s entire existence, all to a curated soundtrack that the author helpfully gives you QR codes to. The novel started out with a lot of action and mysterious world building that drew me in right away as the sudden appearance around the globe of monstrous giants, or Titans, wreak wanton and untold destruction.
The ‘okay’: There’s substantial world-building going on here and it’s clear that the author spent a great deal of time and thought on this ambitious novel. It’s rather cinematic at times and the prose could be quite lovely, but it gets a little too wrapped up in its own complexity. I thought it was losing focus around the halfway mark for a bit: there’s significant sciencey data dumps, and enough time that was spent on one particular character’s story that I found somewhat sluggish and repetitive and would have preferred less which I think would have given the character more of a provocative presence.
I think some prudent editing and a reminder that this is a book, not a screenplay, would have made a world of difference. There’s a lot of exposition, primarily through a mix of flashback chapters and some epistolary ‘documents’ - philosophical musings on the morality of science experiments gone awry that were perhaps a little too long and jarred me out of the narrative.
When the author switches back to the plot, the Pantheon, and the Titans everything immediately picks back up and grips you in its propulsive momentum. The final high-stakes showdown, which is only a prelude to what sounds like an even greater epic of storytelling, was compulsively readable and gratifying.
My thanks to the author for the complimentary copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Originally posted at www.goodreads.com.
3.5/5⭐, rounded up
The good: an exciting premise, amazing artwork (this would make an excellent full graphic novel) and the cool added extras of music references that has caused me to add a lot of new music to my playlists.
This alternate-history mashup of sci-fi, horror, and 80s cold war thriller comes complete with rampaging monsters and genetically engineered soldiers battling over mankind’s entire existence, all to a curated soundtrack that the author helpfully gives you QR codes to. The novel started out with a lot of action and mysterious world building that drew me in right away as the sudden appearance around the globe of monstrous giants, or Titans, wreak wanton and untold destruction.
The ‘okay’: There’s substantial world-building going on here and it’s clear that the author spent a great deal of time and thought on this ambitious novel. It’s rather cinematic at times and the prose could be quite lovely, but it gets a little too wrapped up in its own complexity. I thought it was losing focus around the halfway mark for a bit: there’s significant sciencey data dumps, and enough time that was spent on one particular character’s story that I found somewhat sluggish and repetitive and would have preferred less which I think would have given the character more of a provocative presence.
I think some prudent editing and a reminder that this is a book, not a screenplay, would have made a world of difference. There’s a lot of exposition, primarily through a mix of flashback chapters and some epistolary ‘documents’ - philosophical musings on the morality of science experiments gone awry that were perhaps a little too long and jarred me out of the narrative.
When the author switches back to the plot, the Pantheon, and the Titans everything immediately picks back up and grips you in its propulsive momentum. The final high-stakes showdown, which is only a prelude to what sounds like an even greater epic of storytelling, was compulsively readable and gratifying.
My thanks to the author for the complimentary copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Originally posted at www.goodreads.com.
