Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (3319)

Content

Ross (3284 KP) rated Ironclads in Books

Oct 6, 2017

Ironclads

Adrian Tchaikovsky | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy

7.5

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

*** I received a free advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ***

I have read Adrian Tchakovsky's Shadows of the Apt series and loved it.
I recently read his Dogs of War and enjoyed it. However I think this has somewhat tainted Ironclads for me.

Ireonclads sees us again in the near-future where the UK (read as England which annoyed me, being Scottish) has gained independence from Europe and subsequently gone bust and been bought over by the USA. The USA is likewise invading or at war with much of the rest of the world. These wars are now fought mainly in corporate interest (but then what's new *cough gulf war cough*) with armies of poorly equipped government soldiers being dent in to conflict occasionally supported by corporate playboys (generally the heir to the corporate fortunes) in their massive armoured scion suits (hence iron-clad) where they are fully protected from pretty much everything. These playboys tend to be captured by each other and ransomed back to their families, guffawing at their japes all the way.

The story sees one small group of US soldiers sent in to deepest darkest Sweden to rescue one such playboy who got himself too far ahead of the army and appears to have gone missing but without ransom (without his scion suit).

Being a short (200 pages) book worked well for me, I felt any more scenes or narrative would have felt like padding and this was its natural length.

However, for me this book felt like the notes or background story to Dogs of War and has suffered from my having read the latter. That book notes that wars used to be fought with machines and robots but moves on to cybernetically enhanced animals. This book felt like a side story or introduction to the Dogs of War world and little more.

Other aspects of the story chimed with that of Dogs of War as well and showed the author to be a little short of ideas - living beings with their brains/bodies cybernetically enhanced, swarms of insects used to disrupt communications, the USA being a little bit invadey and corrupt etc.

While this is not my usual cup of tea, I have enjoyed other sci-fi and felt this was a little slapdash. I didn't like the narrative style, finding the blasé, informal tones of the army sergeant both jarring and poorly executed. And while I don't need to be spoon-fed the plot, I found some elements badly or barely explained (what DID the Finns do?!) and the major plot twist neither surprising nor worth the wait.

Tchaikovsky can describe a battle scene well and you get a feel for the whole battle as well as the key conflicts, so the action itself is fairly gripping at times. However, the finished article left me feeling a bit meh.

All in all I am glad I read this, but had expected better things from his sci-fi given Children of Time won the Arthur C Clarke award.

Kudos

Lonely Planet Ireland's Best Trips

Lonely Planet, Catherine Le Nevez, Fionn Davenport and Belinda Dixon

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher Discover the freedom of open roads while...

Virtual Runner

Health & Fitness and Sports

(0 Ratings) Rate It

App

** See Our Review in the July 20, 2016 of the Washington Post: ...

BookblogbyCari (345 KP) rated Rule of One in Books

Sep 23, 2018

Rule of One

Ashley Saunders, Leslie Saunders | 2018 | Dystopia, Thriller, Young Adult (YA)

6.7

(3 Ratings)

Book Rating

Book review by Cari Mayhew. Rating 9/10.

With every chapter having its own climax, this YA dystopian novel is set to be a bestseller!

I had the opportunity to read this before its official release date thanks to Amazon First Reads. It’s set in the future in the USA. The country is deemed overpopulated, and the country follows the Rule of One, which is that couples can only have one child. Everyone has identity microchips implanted into their wrists, and rations of food are obtained from 3D printers.

Ava and Mira are hiding a secret. They are identical twins, who’ve been taking turns each day to live as one person. One day they are found out and they’re forced to go on the run! They had been well practised in pretending to be one person, but they were ill prepared to handle being discovered.

The plot is fraught with tension and there’s trouble at every turn. They leave with little more than a map and a name, and face plenty of obstacles along the way.

They eventually hear rumours of a resistance, and people who can help them, and they are given new identities. But, in turn, they are asked to help the cause directly. Meanwhile their father is taken into custody and tortured. At this point, the twins no longer see eye to eye.

Some scenes are a little cliché, but the fast pace more than makes up for it.

The blurb in the description says that it’s set in the near future. Technology-wise it could be, but not in terms of the USA becoming so over populated that it would need such a rule, although this was recently the case in China.

I loved this book - as I said, each chapter has its own climax, which makes it quite the page-turner! IMO, it’s exactly as a dystopian thriller should be – a tense but light read and not all dreary. I have already ordered the sequel, which is due to be released in 2019 – I can’t wait to see where the story goes from here!

For more book news and reviews, check out bookblogbycari.com