EDA review: The Domino Effect

[usuallyhats]

I haven't been reading so many EDAs recently, since I'm beginning to run out, but yesterday I finished The Domino Effect and was not very impressed, I'm afraid. The writing was very flat, the plot didn't make much sense, and the characterisation felt off - Fitz and Anji were both disappointingly generic. I nearly ditched the book at one point, when the Doctor and Anji had an argument which didn't seem true to their characters and brought up the events of Hope - I was trying to forget that one, thank you! It would have been more in character for the Doctor just to tell Anji that he trusts her to rescue Fitz on her own whilst he goes off to do plot things, rather than try and build unnecessary dramatic tension. Speaking of Fitz, how many times can one character get beaten up in less than three hundred pages? It was turning into that slightly ridiculous trope where the bad guys go down after one punch but the hero is still quipping and making speeches after being beaten up about seventeen times. I also didn't like seeing Anji being subjected to so much racism - although (sadly) it may have made sense that people in that situation would hold those views, it didn't make for enjoyable reading.

Unfortunately, the OCs weren't much better - pretty flat and uninteresting. I guessed that Hannah was going to be a traitor quite a while before it happened, but didn't care that much, because neither she nor the others ever became full characters for me. And the bad guys might as well have been wearing black hats and going MWAHAHAHA every few pages for all the development they got. The closest any of the Pentarch got to characterisation was that bit where one of them - Briggs, I think - was taking great pleasure in watching the protesters get massacred, while the author went on about him being overweight. FAIL.

I was also a bit uncomfortable with Alan Turing's appearances - I started skimming them after a while, I must admit. Mostly this is just my feeling that if you're going to write published fiction which uses real people who a) don't appear that much in fiction and b) were alive within living memory, it has to be well written, which The Turing Test was and this, well, wasn't. If it had just been a cameo or a mention of him, that would have been fine: Eight realising that putting the timeline back on track would mean condemning his friend to an early death was good, though I was annoyed that he didn't actually have to choose whether to do that or not. And the fact that the Oracle collapsed the timeline by shooting him skeeved me - it wasn't narratively justified, since it didn't make any kind of sense. Not impressed. (I did like the 'Shroud of Turing' pun, though. Sorry.)

GAH. I hope Reckless Engineering is better, three rubbish ones in a row would be a bit much. And it would break my heart to hate a book with skellington!Brunel on the cover.

Comments

[livii.livejournal.com]

I can't comment on Domino Effect as I haven't read it, but Reckless Engineering was the first EDA I read (I found it in a used bookstore for $3!) and I clearly loved it to pieces as it got me started on the rest of them. It was interesting, twisty, and made me ship Fitz/Anji like whoa... :D

[usuallyhats]

Yay! I thought it was that one, but I wasn't sure. That's reassuring!

[everlasting-day.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, another negative review of The Domino Effect. I'm really, really not looking forward to this one when I get there (I'm currently trying to work myself up into reading The Slow Empire, which isn't proving a great success).

It's a shame, because I do think David Bishop is a pretty talented chap. I listened to his Sapphire and Steel audio drama All Fall Down a few days ago after midnight in the dark and it scared me quite a bit, I have to say.

[usuallyhats]

I liked David Bishop's Unbound play, but this is actually the book of his I dislike least... Maybe he's just better at audios?

I did enjoy The Slow Empire, but I think it probably depends on your tolerance for Dave Stone!

[everlasting-day.livejournal.com]

I've got absolutely no prior experience with Dave Stone at all, apart from being aware of his big word-stuffed vocabulary. My EDA-a-thon is currently in danger of stalling to a grinding halt due to other fannish pursuits that seem to have taken over, so I think I'll get cracking on it very soon (and no doubt blog about it - very exciting!)

[lcsbanana.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen anything else of his, but 'Domino Effect' is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL. I sincerely hope you don't pay for it.

What problems are you having with 'Slow Empire'? I loved it, but it was definitely very...stylized, and I can see how people wouldn't be into it. But I thought it was magnificent both as its own book and as a reflection on the series that came before it/led to it.

[everlasting-day.livejournal.com]

I did, unfortunately! It was only 99p though, so I'm not too devastated about it.

Well, it was more of a sort of "book by association" sort of problem. I absolutely loved The Year of Intelligent Tigers (probably THE best books I've read this year so far), picked up The Slow Empire, read the prologue and just though "ah". It didn't seem bad, just... erm... strange. I think I've got to get myself into the right mood to read it.

Poor Fitz...

[drox.livejournal.com]

GAH. I hope Reckless Engineering is better...

Well if you thought Fitz got beat up a lot in 'Domino Effect', you better brace yourself for 'Reckless Engineering'. IIRC Fitz spends most of that one getting beat up, imprisoned and/or tortured.

Re: Poor Fitz...

[usuallyhats]

Oh no, poor Fitz indeed :( Hopefully it'll be better written, though!

[lullabee-lj.livejournal.com]

I liked what I read of that one, but I never did actually get around to just sitting down and reading it. It did rather bother me that apparently it was Kick Fitz Inna Face Day. The boy is not a stress ball, all right? But there was that scene where he was on trial and someone said something racist about Anji and he flipped the hell out. He's almost never angry, as far as I've noticed, but that made him really angry, and awwwww. It kind of seemed like the author was making a special effort to have Fitz go out of his way to demonstrate how unprejudiced he is, which is a little anvilicious, but, you know, of all the things to complain about, why would I complain about that?

And I'm kind of torn about the racism thing - writers aren't obliged to sugarcoat a situation just so the reader doesn't get upset, but when it's a completely imaginary situation that's not proving any meaningful point, I'd be more pleased if they, say, discriminated against grey-eyed people and kick Fitz's arse all over the place for an established reason.

Oh, and I hate it when writers make bad characters fat as if this is somehow helping make their badness more three-dimensional or something.

It did rather please me that this one made it canon the Doctor and Turing were something of an item or whatever. Queer!Eight, yay.

[usuallyhats]

Yes, that was definitely a point in its favour!

It kind of seemed like the author was making a special effort to have Fitz go out of his way to demonstrate how unprejudiced he is, which is a little anvilicious, but, you know, of all the things to complain about, why would I complain about that?
I liked that too, as well as the bit later on when Turing talks about falling in love with a boy at school, and Fitz is not only ok with it, he doesn't bat an eyelid. It's a shame it was buried in a book I disliked so much.

And I'm kind of torn about the racism thing - writers aren't obliged to sugarcoat a situation just so the reader doesn't get upset
I agree, and if the writing had been better it wouldn't've bothered me so much, but it felt like it was being used as shorthand for 'this is a bad place', like Fitz getting beaten up so much was a shorthand for 'these are the bad guys, their hats are black'.

Oh, and I hate it when writers make bad characters fat as if this is somehow helping make their badness more three-dimensional or something.
Yes! And the way it was written made it even worse - the character's reaction to seeing people killed seemed to be inextricably linked to the fact that he was fat. Ugh.