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.

• I like the creativity, believability, and nuance in Jed’s portrayal. His brilliance and vision have propelled him to create two thriving businesses at a very young age. This intelligence combined with his youth results in some brashness, particularly when dealing with people who are overtly hostile to him. He is not entirely consistent and experiences much less character development than I would have liked, but his likability and spunk are more than enough to carry the story.
• Chapter layout and arrangement are not consistent and do not serve the overall construction of the story. Most chapters end on cliff hangers with the next one picking up a moment later. On the other hand, some chapters cover extended periods of time; for example, one chapter sees the passage of several weeks. Section breaks inside of the chapters serve as breaks in the action and would have made better ends of the chapters.
• There are not many inconsistencies and anachronisms in the story, so normally I wouldn’t bring them up specifically. Nevertheless, there is one which I found amusing, so now you get to hear about it. One character says in part “…but it’s off their radar.” The story is set in the 1880s and radar has definitely not been invented yet. Oops.
• TINY SPOILERS: The story revolves around a conflict between Jed and a railroad which is trying to buy a strip of land on his ranch for the purposes of installing rail. Jed does not want to sell because the land in question will cut his ranch in half and make raising cattle difficult. The town’s folk, on the other hand, are very interested in the financial boon the railroad will bring to the town and attempt to pressure Jed into selling. This is a perfect setup for the story to examine conflicts between the common good and personal rights. Is Jed’s refusal to sell truly rooted in the survival of his businesses, or is his ego at play? Unfortunately, the plot consistently steers away from this discussion, opting for a much more simplified version of good guys and bad guys. It is still an entertaining story, but it could have benefited from taking a slightly different direction.
• SPOILERS: The plot is generally very logically driven by Jed and his actions. An example of this is how he discovers that perhaps the railroad isn’t after his land for the reasons they have stated. In an effort to pressure Jed into selling, the railroad buys land over which Jed’s shipping company sends their wagons on deliveries. This effectively severs important shipping lanes for Jed, and he heads to the land office to figure out how to handle the new development. While there, he discovers that his ranch is not the straightest or most convenient path for the railroad. Up until this point, he has assumed no motives to the railroad’s desire to buy his land other than to install the rail, so this new information sends the plot down a new path as he struggles to figure out their ulterior motives. This is an excellent and organic development of the plot.
• SPOILERS: There are a few instances of inconsistency for the characters, two of which involve the sale and construction of a dirigible. When the railroad buys land to impede Jed’s shipping operation, he becomes convinced that the solution to his problem is to construct a fleet of airships to ship his goods. He buys a patent for an airship, but waits until after he has purchased said patent to ask the designer how long it will take to construct the airship. This piece of information is critical to his plan because an extensive construction timeline will negate the ability of said dirigibles to save his business. This lack of foresight is not at all commiserate with his character. The second inconsistency comes at the end of the book when Jed offers Phineas, the airship inventor, a job constructing dirigibles for him. Phineas quickly accepts, a puzzling move considering that he wanted to sell his patent so he would have time and money to travel the world for the rest of his life. These and a few other inconsistencies are definitely the exception rather than the rule for characters in the book and consequently don’t hurt the overall believability of the cast too much.
• MAJOR SPOILERS: The plot is generally very good, driven by the actions and decisions of the main character and having few coincidences; however, there is one glaring exception which deserves mention. Throughout the novel there is a subplot about whether Jim, Jed’s ranch foreman, is loyal to his employer or if he is conspiring with Leroy, the main henchman of the railroad. In the third act, Jed makes a visit to one of his company branches run by a woman named Carla. It is very convenient that he chose to visit this branch when he was wondering about Jim because Carla happened to be Leroy’s mom. She also happened to have a picture in her office of her son and his childhood friend who happened to be Jim. Not only is this very convenient but compared to the rest of the plot, the contrived nature of how Jed got this information sticks out like a sore thumb.