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

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Review: The Fallen

The Fallen The Fallen by Ada Hoffmann
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the first book The Outside as part of the Goodreads Sci/Fi group selection for Oct 2019 and a general Lovecraftian horror connection. Fallen is the second of the series and picks up right where the first book ends with the same cast of characters ... and is really just a continuation of the original story. As much as I was completely fascinated by the world building in the first book, this book doesn't add anything new ... You have AI Gods that pretty much usurp the roles of traditional deities (complete with a brutal machiavellian oversight of humanity through cruel cyborg "Angels") that highlights standard tropes and criticisms of religion in general. Then you have the reluctant rebels just trying to survive after the chaos of the "Outside" collides with the planet on which they reside. I found all of this pretty interesting ... in the first book ... and we do get a little more information on some of this, but not much. The first half of this book doesn't appear to go anywhere and it took me several weeks to push through it ... it picks up for the second half though and I cranked through that in just a few days. Still ... I am not exactly sure what if anything was actually resolved plot wise and that is a serious shortcoming for this sequel (so it loses a star).

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheFallen #NetGalley

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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.