Reviews

Burndive by Karin Lowachee

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astrireads's review against another edition

3.0

Burndive by Karin Lowachee is the sequel to Warchild, telling a new story of a new character in the universe of Warchild. I thought this book was easier to read than the first, but there were some parts when I just lost interest and skimmed the pages. Those that were good gripped my full attention and transported me to the universe with strits, symps, and jets. Karin is undoubtedly a good writer, delivering complex characters, plot twists and piercing sentences.

This book is definitely a must-read for those who enjoy reading science fiction!

msmith7344's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

serru's review against another edition

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5.0

I loved [b:Warchild|184786|Warchild (Warchild, #1)|Karin Lowachee|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344270885s/184786.jpg|178604], the previous book in this series, and I'd heard that Burndive focuses on a different, less likeable character. But Karin Lowachee does not disappoint! Burndive is an outstanding follow-up, focusing on Ryan, the son of Captain Cairo Azarcon whom we met in the previous book. Ryan is a difficult character to like but Lowachee writes him with a lot of sympathy and he grew on me as the story progressed. It was also interesting to see old characters from Warchild, particularly Jos, through Ryan's eyes, particularly Jos, who was the main character of that book. There's some hilarious banter between the characters as well.

While Burndive lacks a lot of the action of Warchild, it was still an engrossing read. I was drawn in by the emotional journey that Ryan takes in navigating and ultimately mending his relationship with his father. The author is extremely skilled at writing emotionally true stories, and her careful, controlled prose is dripping with raw emotions. The characters face many difficult situations, and Lowachee never makes it easy for them, but it's through this that her characters truly shine.

An outstanding book overall, and highly recommended!

mary_soon_lee's review against another edition

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4.0

This is the second book in the Warchild science-fiction series. It's less extreme than Warchild in various respects, broadening the reach of the series, rather than being a clone of book one. Spoilers ahead.

Spoiler

It opens with a rich handsome teenager going to buy drugs, which is not a combination likely to win me over. If book one ("Warchild") hadn't riveted me, I might have bailed in the first few pages. Instead I persisted, and soon the author's skill drew me in despite my prejudices. I found myself sympathetic to Ryan (the protagonist), and hooked by the situation.

I especially appreciated that Ryan wasn't super-smart or super-skilled or super-heroic, which might have been easier options to capture readers. Rather, he's scared, vulnerable, soft-natured and likable.

While I didn't love "Burndive" as entirely as I had "Warchild," I loved it quite well enough to steal time to read it whenever I could, and to order another book by the author before I'd finished.

About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved).

jmoses's review against another edition

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4.0

Good, character driven writing. Main character stars out being a little spoiled whiny brat, but we see personal development due to circumstances, which is nice.

agbrewer's review against another edition

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4.0

This book brought about a tiny shard of self-awareness for me and my reading habits. Even though this was a much longer book (400+ pages) than it looked, and because of that it still took awhile to read; I still always had a hard time putting it down and always read double what I had planned. Part of that is the absence of chapters, which, I have to admit, looks daunting when you are flipping through it. This author, [a:Karin Lowachee|107732|Karin Lowachee|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282963779p2/107732.jpg], is all about using the structure of her writing to emphasize the character's emotional state though and the absence of chapters is a clever way of reflecting Burndive's main character, Ryan Azarcon.

So, back to my tiny revelation... I liked this book much better than [b:Warchild|184787|Warchild|Esther M. Friesner|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328000409s/184787.jpg|178605] (the first in the trilogy) mainly because of Ryan. Anyone who reads the cover or has read the book already will probably doubt my sanity because of that statement, but there it is. Ryan is a selfish, spoiled, and aloof nineteen-year-old who has his own bodyguard. Not exactly a character that most people would identify with. But he intrigued me to no end, much more so than Jos did in the first book.

When I began contemplating why that was, I realized that I have a long history of liking self-absorbed characters, for lack of a better term. [b:Order of the Phoenix|2|Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)|J.K. Rowling|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327625733s/2.jpg|2809203] is still my favorite Harry Potter book, partly because of whiny Harry; [b:New Moon|49041|New Moon (Twilight, #2)|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1308815097s/49041.jpg|3203964] was my favorite of the Twilight series, because it is the one that documents Bella's depression; I liked [b:Something Blue|42155|Something Blue (Darcy & Rachel, #2)|Emily Giffin|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316638724s/42155.jpg|1470371] better than [b:Something Borrowed|42156|Something Borrowed|Emily Giffin|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1305063535s/42156.jpg|1789440], more because of Darcy, than Ethan or London; and I'm sure there are many others that aren't coming to mind at the moment. Now, I could go with the most obvious reasoning and say that I like to read these type of characters because I relate to them, and yes, maybe somewhere inside I have a small piece of me that fits the mold, but that's not why I like reading these books. I mean, I find mirrors annoying, so why would I want to read about myself?

I pondered what connects all of these books for a while and came up with several reasons why I enjoy books about selfish people so much. Reason #1 - They are unpredictable. The typical selfish protagonist has a good character somewhere under that coarse exterior and the constant warring between the two means that you never are quite sure how he'll react. Reason #2 - The character's selfishness is always caused by something, and usually it's traumatic. That means there is usually a pretty juicy background story to the novel. Reason #3 - On that same note, the protagonist usually has to deal with those traumatic events at some point and that creates an awareness of his own attitude and actions. If that good character underneath exists, then he'll endeavor to change. All of that working through the post-trauma and repairing the damage done since is fascinating to me. Reason #4 - While the protagonist is working through all of this, he usually is coming to terms with what kind of a person he wants to be and what he really wants to do with his life. That is one aspect of all of this that I can relate to very well, and so can many others, I believe. Everyone has to go through this at one point or another and some of us never stop doing it. But it is always cool to see a character work his way through that jungle and come out with a sense of direction and purpose.

To finally get back to Burndive, Ryan is a classic example of one of these "wounded" protagonists. He's in an endless downward spiral when you first meet him, with no idea how to get out of it. When his father, Captain Azarcon, realizes how bad it has become he decides to try to pull his son out of it himself. And that's when things get really fun. :-)

The banter between Ryan and his bodyguard/best friend, Sidney, is funny when it's just the two of them, but then they get thrown in with all of the old hands from the last book, and it becomes downright hilarious at times. Getting to see Jos without constantly brooding in his head all the time was refreshing, and actually getting to know the Captain was an unexpected pleasure. All in all, I very much enjoyed getting to know Ryan Azarcon and enjoyed my return to this universe a lot more than I thought I would.