Reviews

The Rig by Roger Levy

hungry_ghosts's review against another edition

Did not draw me in at all. Also, I found the sci-fi language changes cheap. 

laurapf's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

radiatorpasta's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

very cool and nuanced story. could have been 150 pages shorter.

spoookykid's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

emmy_readz's review against another edition

Not sure what page I got to bc lobby won't tell me pages but man....this is a lot. So many unexplained concepts presented at the same time. I know they will probably explain later but that just way too much to try to keep all together. Not for me. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder and Religious bigotry

bob_'s review against another edition

3.0

Way. Too. Long.

goldencinder's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I wanted to like the book. The first page had a great hook; hell, the first chapter was pretty interesting. Afterwards, I wasn’t excited for any of it.

My main issue throughout the entire story was the vocabulary. I’m definitely for the evolution of language but it has to make sense. Spitting out words that are slightly changed with no real apparent reason for the shift nor even a glossary in the back came off as extremely irritating. If you could help me understand the progress this culture or that planet had that cultivated the sort of linguist changes, that would be exciting and I’d happily read those words. 

But this came off as though the author wanted some cool lingo to throw into his futuristic settings.

I also had an extremely hard time interpreting some of these words, and even after finishing it, I couldn’t explain what they mean.

Let me give some examples: Puter/Putery (computer?), husman (husband), payflake (credit card), dolors (dollars), pornosphere (?), pornoverse (?), arkestra (orchestra), and the worst ones included a “v” in front of any alcoholic drink like “viskey”.

The overall theme of the book

that “goddery” can be found anywhere people hope for some sort of life after death

is fairly interesting, and it’s cool to see how it all came together, but everything around the story feels weightless. The characters didn’t matter to me, even if they did at one point (lookin at you Alef). The main villain’s final betrayal reveal

that Perieve was always his or something

came out of nowhere and was unsatisfying. 

Some other gripes I could pepper in here would be that there were numerous plot-holes and inconsistencies. There were moments both short and ongoing where I couldn’t tell what the heck was going on. The wording was incredibly confusing so instead of being able to imagine what Levy was describing, the words ended up just being words and I didn’t care to try and figure out what he wanted me to visualize.

Another complaint on the ever growing list of complaints I have as I think on what I read more and more is the names of the planets. I could understand such informal and uncreative names for them if it was made clear that the names came from the locals, but alas, that was never clarified. So instead, I had to deal with the very probable fact that “Bleak”, “Colder”, and “VegasChrist” were named by some sort of government. The planet name “Gehenna” is pretty cool for what it is. 

Speaking of planets…

I was holding out great hope for some sort of crazy reveal of the unnamed planets involvement with everything, but instead I was left with pretty much nothing. The only involvement by the unnamed planet was some confusing dialogue regarding Pellenhorc’s cancer, which was also confusing.

I wish I could like this book, I can tell the author put a lot into it. It fell short for me though. If I wasn’t such a completionist, I would have DNFed early on.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Cancer, Death, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Grief, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Stalking, and Pregnancy

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Cursing, Vomit, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Child abuse

kimblefairy1989's review against another edition

5.0

I don't normally go for sci-fi/fantasy type novels but my husband chose this for me and it was absolutely brilliant.

I felt all the stories were brilliantly weaved and the way they all came together at the end was fantastic.

There were a few plot twists as well that, even though I'd picked up on where the overall plot was headed, I didn't see coming.

Overall this was definitely worth 5 stars!

lucysmithyy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

kenngkz's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5