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A review by medea_jade
Annihilation by Catherynne M. Valente
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Let down, yet again, by a BioWare tie in novel. This book was clearly written by someone who loves Mass Effect, but I think that beta readers (if there were any) were too supportive and not critical enough and editors phoned it in.
The biggest problem with the book was the pacing. It was far too slow. Not until very briefly at almost the end of the book did I feel like there was a sense of crisis, which considering the premise of the book, I should have felt from the get go.
I am all for character development, but what happened in this book felt more like character study. It was too much, too involved, for so short a book and was a huge part of what slowed the pace down. So much of what is told about the characters was irrelevant to the plot.
Something else that really bothered me was the inconsistency in character names. Sometimes they were called by their full name, sometimes only first or last, sometimes nicknames, sometimes first and middle names. It made it really hard for me to nail down which character was which. The narrator at the very least should be consistent in what the character is called. It constantly pulled me out of the story trying to figure out who was the subject at what moment.
The cast of this book is entirely alien and yet the characters frequently reference Earth plants and animals or use human phrases. This is where a beta reader would have sat up and said hmm is there another way this idea could be communicated instead of having a Batarian call another Batarian a dog.
As I said, this book was clearly written by someone who loves Mass Effect. In particular, I loved the in depth exposition about Batarians and their caste system, something I always wished the game had gone into more. But overall the book was disappointing.
The biggest problem with the book was the pacing. It was far too slow. Not until very briefly at almost the end of the book did I feel like there was a sense of crisis, which considering the premise of the book, I should have felt from the get go.
I am all for character development, but what happened in this book felt more like character study. It was too much, too involved, for so short a book and was a huge part of what slowed the pace down. So much of what is told about the characters was irrelevant to the plot.
Something else that really bothered me was the inconsistency in character names. Sometimes they were called by their full name, sometimes only first or last, sometimes nicknames, sometimes first and middle names. It made it really hard for me to nail down which character was which. The narrator at the very least should be consistent in what the character is called. It constantly pulled me out of the story trying to figure out who was the subject at what moment.
The cast of this book is entirely alien and yet the characters frequently reference Earth plants and animals or use human phrases. This is where a beta reader would have sat up and said hmm is there another way this idea could be communicated instead of having a Batarian call another Batarian a dog.
As I said, this book was clearly written by someone who loves Mass Effect. In particular, I loved the in depth exposition about Batarians and their caste system, something I always wished the game had gone into more. But overall the book was disappointing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit and Terminal illness
Minor: Child death