RANTS AND RAMBLES
NOTE: Though I strive to adequately support the opinions expressed in my reviews, they are still just opinions. If you like a book I hate, I’m happy for you. Additionally, while I regularly rant about mere irritants in a novel, something must be remarkably good to garner the same level of comment. This means my rants and rambles often skew more negative than I intend my review to be, so please refer to my overall star rating for my unified opinion on this book. For being from a big publisher, this book has quite a number of obvious and easily fixed grammatical errors and less than ideal writing choices. These include incorrect punctuation errors, repetition, artless exposition, a lot of past-tense and passive writing, and a bunch of telling when showing would have served the story much better.

• In this universe there are psychic guides (psi guides) who have connections to disembodied spirits of some sort which give them knowledge and help them navigate the world. This idea and its implications are expanded by the inclusion of Pradim who is blind yet, due to his spiritual connection, can navigate the world better than the average person. This is all perfectly fine. What isn’t is that his blindness is brought up every time he is mentioned. Whether “blind Pradim,” “sightless Pradim,” or “Pradim, whose eyeballs are visually challenged” (I made up that last one), it is super annoying that he is always mentioned with this qualifier. Just trust the audience to remember that this important supporting character is blind. And if they don’t, what does it even matter since he behaves exactly as a non-blind character would?
• This gripe is definitely because I am a civil engineer, but it makes no sense that cantilevered footbridges would be used to cross ravines. The cantilever design definitionally is supported only at one end, so a bridge of such design would have only one exit and entrance, such as a viewing platform overhanging a waterfall. I mean, I suppose it is possible for a cantilever design to cross a ravine with a slight step-down on the far side, but why would that be the case when they could just be regular bridges, supported at both ends?
• MINOR SPOILERS: Romantic relationships are laughable in Empyrion. Treet and Yardin have no history, interaction, or chemistry to support a relationship but are an item apparently because they are the two main-est main characters in the story. Pizzle and Starla’s relationship is even worse. Pizzle comes across as a complete jerk, assuming a lot from basic social interactions, thinking a relationship exists early on, and becoming possessive and jealous of Starla soon after meeting her. When he thinks he has no chance with her, he immediately moves on to another woman. The very idea that Starla is even vaguely interested in this condescending caricature of a misogynist is ridiculous.
• MINOR SPOILERS: Starla and Pizzle are given a trial by the Preceptor, the leader of the Fieri, to prove their relationship is love rather than infatuation. This test is simple: Pizzle and Starla cannot see each other for a cycle of the sun (this might be a year, but I’m not sure). The Preceptor immediately amends the trial such that Pizzle and Starla can see each other but only in the presence of others. It appears that they are alone just a few scenes later; however, since Starla would never go against the word of the Preceptor, the only possible conclusion is that other people are there as Starla and Pizzle PDA out the wazzoo. I’m not sure that’s the trial the Preceptor had in mind. It is clear that the intent was to force Starla and Pizzle to contemplate the deeper aspects of their relationship in the absence of the physical, which would have provided an opportunity to expand the themes of the book and develop the characters through their internal thoughts and struggles. Unfortunately, the near irrelevance of this trial erases any possibility of broader meaning and makes me wonder what the point was.
• SPOILERS: Treet makes a speech to inspire an army, but he references only historic earth battles which the present audience would be wholly unaware of. The fact that the audience reacts positively to his speech breaks immersion and suspension of disbelief.
• SPOILERS: Also damaging the reader’s immersion is the Fieri society which makes no sense and is chock full of inconsistencies. They are supposedly egalitarian, yet the way women are described and their position in the society seems to fly in the face of this. The society is also described as a utopia with no crime, disease, or hunger, ostensibly due to the Fieri’s embrace of “Christian” values. No one works except at what they want to, so I guess the sewage pipes probably never get repaired and no one works at the local grocery store. It is naïve hogwash to think that a society like this could ever exist. A utopia this complete has never and will never exist, even among Christians, until the end of time. The ridiculous and unrealistic nature of the Fieri society is enough to seriously damage suspension of disbelief.
• MAJOR SPOILERS: I debated whether this was a major spoiler or simply a spoiler because, as you will soon see, what I am about to discuss has no bearing at all on the story of either book. Crocker gets brainwashed early in the first book. I am unsure exactly what the purpose of this mental manipulation was, but I think it has to do with finding either the Dhogs or the Fieri and reporting their location back to the leadership of Dome. Whatever the intent, the brainwashing doesn’t work and simply results in Crocker murdering Calin at the end of Search for Fierra. Calin’s death does not have the impact it should given the relationship between her and Treet. It does not change Treet, it does not change his trajectory, and it does not change the trajectory of the story. In fact, after her death, Calin is never mentioned again. The only real consequence that her death has is to drive Crocker insane, which would have meant something if Crocker’s whole character wasn’t so pointless. He spends most the first book in a coma and does nothing of significance prior to killing Calin. His mind is broken for the entirety of book 2 which he spends trapesing through a forest with a big cat. He eventually meets back up with Yardin, Pizzle, and the Fieri. This interaction could have been significant since his state would inform them that something went wrong on Treet’s mission back to Dome, except they already know this because fish empaths (it’s as odd as it sounds) already told them and Yardin (I think it was her, maybe it was Pizzle) had a dream warning of the exact same thing. Finally, Crocker decides that he would rather be a wild animal and leaves the Fieri, never to be seen again. Ultimately, because Calin’s murder serves only to send Crocker on his storyline which is itself pointless, her death is also pointless.