A review by hawaiianbrian
Buffalo Soldier by Maurice Broaddus

2.0

As a fan of both weird fantasy and reggae, I wanted to like this book more than I did. In fact, the premise was solid, and I think there's a world here that could bear future exploration. But the pacing seemed off in some places, and it needed another round of editing for mechanical issues -- I spotted many sentences missing verbs and typos that couldn't be caught with spell-check, and the author's writerly tic phrase "...a series of..." became very distracting by the time I was halfway through this short work. Without spoiling any plot elements, I felt the ending flinched away from a very central conflict between the main character and a certain member of the opposition. Several important plot elements were introduced and then not developed. Same is true with the characters, which never rise above more than a character concept. In all, it felt like this could have used a couple more pointed revisions with an aggressive editor that could get Broaddus to tease out the story gem resting inside the current draft. At the moment, the best part is the cover art.