My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Review: Claymore: Color Edition

Claymore: Color Edition Claymore: Color Edition by Jimm Grogan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Performance: ***

This is the third of a series following Negative Zero and Baktu (neither of which I have read). While the series revolves around the vigilante Tomek (aka Negative Zero), that character doesn’t have a lot to do in this installment, so this can easily be a stand alone read. At just under 7 hours of solid narration for 227 pages, this is a quick story and it moves fast, jumping years in the beginning to reach a surprising climax. Claymore, the MC, is a well known and accomplished alien [Navino] lawyer from a light [gravity] world that makes him physically brittle. For me he has a sort of Perry Mason in spade feel. He is also relatively (and sometimes brutally) honest (which is an interesting take on the lawyer trope) and it often works to his own detriment as he investigates, and then works against, a shadowy criminal organization that is trafficking other aliens. The dialog is very direct and simple, but that actually works to give the MC an other or alien feel. Overall it was a good story that I enjoyed much more than I thought I would and that gives it a +1 star over the quality of the story and performance.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Claymore #Tomek #FreeAudiobookCodes

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.