Peter Last

RANTS AND RAMBLES

• DISCLAIMER: When I review books, weaknesses and inconsistencies tend to dominate my discussion; therefore, I will emphasize that any particular rant (and, yes, they can be long-winded) does not have special bearing on my unified opinion of the book. For this, please refer to my overall star rating. Additionally, this review is my personal opinion, intended to help like-minded readers navigate the plethora of available options. Use it as a tool but do not assign undue importance to it (i.e. feel free to disagree with me).
• This book has so many instances of the words had, was, began, decided, and many more. Obviously, these words are not inherently bad, but having a lot of them indicates a serious problem with writing style, namely that it is removed from the action. This fact may not be obvious, and it took me quite some time before I recognized this weakness in my own writing, so it is an imprecation of this novel only and not the author (as is the case with all my criticisms). Because it is not immediately evident how a plethora of these words may indicate a writing detached from the action, we can use a sentence from Stone Circle to explore the idea. [The one in the center was brandishing a crossbow. Aiming at Lee, it fired. (page 108)]. The word was is completely unnecessary in this instance, in fact, the sentence reads much better if we remove it entirely [The one in the center brandished a crossbow. Aiming at Lee, it fired.] The extra words gets in the way and makes the action seem clunky. Now, a few sentences like this will not ruin a story, but when every action is begun or decided upon or had happened, the textual chaff really gets in the way of the story.
• PROBABLY NOT SPOILERS: The grammar and technical writing errors in this book are jarring. I normally excuse this in independently published novels, after all, the resources are not always available to create a flawless product. But in this case, the sheer volume of offenses make it impossible to ignore. Misplaced punctuation, wrong words, extra words and letters, missing words and letters, repetitive words, and more errors swarm the pages of this book. There are sentences which say the same thing one after the other […he lit one of the magnesium flares he carried. Wet or dry they sparked and fired just fine. The magnesium ignited and Dan tossed it into the darkened house. (page 16)], or conversely, contradict each other [Before long, Dan was snoring, much to the chagrin of Valkyrie. His captor preferred him sleeping as opposed to talking, for his speech had made her to anger with his assumptions. (page 270)]. Many of these problems can be solved even if the author is on a strict budget. Even without the assistance of others, reading the novel several items, including at least once out loud, will catch many glaring issues with the writing.
• MINISCULE SPOILERS: A pet peeve of mine is when weaponry described in books does not mesh with reality, and it is clear that Tucker does not understand weapons very well. First, in the prologue, Baum ends up in water which apparently means his revolver cartridges and shotgun shells get wet and won’t work. This is not at all how sealed ammunition types work. In fact, one of the advantages of cartridges over black powder style firearms is that they are significantly more resistant to wet weather. Second, Baum carries a Bowie knife in his boot. Now it is true that boot knives exist and Bowie knives are real, but a Bowie knife simply would not work for a boot knife. At a total length of one to one and a half feet, the idea of it comfortably residing in a boot and not affecting mobility of the ankle is unrealistic. On the plus side, the Tin Man assault machine invented by Winston is a cool contraption with fun yet realistic cannons and very steampunky pneumatic fists. Later, the whole thing is retrofitted with a parachute so it can be dropped from an airship into battle. Despite a bit of a condensed design and manufacturing timeline of the parachute, this is a neat progression of the Tin Man. In fact, Tin Man may have the best development of anyone or anything in the entire novel, and I would have liked to see it featured more.
• TINY SPOILERS: Problems crop up throughout the novel but are easily and almost immediately solved. For example, the velocitor gets stuck in mud at one point. This should have led to a confrontation or at least forced the protagonists to solve the problem. Instead, four sentences after the wheels start to spin, [Finally, the wheels reached large rocks under the mud and lurched forward, dragging the heavy trailer with the Tin Man behind them (page 159)]. What a waste. Why even have the velocitor get stuck if nothing comes of it? It’s not even realistic. I know a thing or two about getting trucks stuck and never have I spun the wheels enough to reach large rocks. Never.
• SPOILERS: The action of the story attempts a lot of panache, but it fizzles out, not due to variety or volume but because it feels too safe. Enemies parade through the book, each seeming to present a new challenge, but each easily dispatched in short order. The Erlking is a representative example. A pied-piper type of shade with no physical form and no obvious vulnerabilities, he should be frightening and difficult to contend with. It is quickly evident during the first confrontation that normal weapons can’t harm him, so the heroes run away. Which works incredibly well because apparently the Erlking can’t enter houses uninvited. Winston easily deduces he also cannot cross running water and that he is susceptible to fire. At the next encounter, Baum throws a firebomb at the Erlking and…it just works. There are no challenges, no problems crop up, no complications to overcome. The first solution simply works. This is representative of just about all enemies. Many are simply killed with shooting or stabbing, and in the cases where there appears to be a bit of a challenge, the second attempt to kill them works, all with basically no real danger to the protagonists. The action also loses suspense when the protagonists are able to perform nearly superhuman feats to get out of trouble. For example, in the battle of Falls, Baum easily jumps from one roof to the next while carrying a shotgun, wearing a pneumatic backpack, and carrying a child. This straightforward, musclebound, fanciful approach robs him of the chance to concoct a cleverer solution. It also implants the idea in the reader that if he is ever in a truly sticky situation, he can just superhuman his way out of it.
• SPOILERS: Winston’s entire identity is an intelligent, well-read, studied inventor. He is a genius so why, when confronting the Erlking, did he forget that blowing up one end of a simply supported bridge would cause the other end to collapse as well? [The dynamite detonated and blew half of the bridge into splinters. The hunters had not accounted for an important detail of their plan: without the other end of the bridge, the portion they were on would not stay up (page 197)]. When the genius inventor forgets a simple thing like this for a bridge he has crossed at least three times already, it is hard to imagine he is as clever as the rest of the novel would have us believe. Consistent characters are critical to a believable story, and unfortunately, Baum and Winston are not always believable.
• SPOILERS: Death is an important component of any story. It can be used to begin or end character arcs. It obviously affects the character who dies, but it should also impact the surrounding cast. Death has such an important psychological impact on humans that it can be used to elicit extremely strong emotion, but if it is used flippantly, the reader will develop a resistance to it, just like drinking too much coffee makes a person develop a resistance to the effects of caffeine. Because of this, death as a plot point must be very intentional, and fakeout deaths should be used extraordinarily sparingly. I say this as someone who has used them in my writing before. Tucker uses death in a bid to elicit an emotional response at the beginning of the third act when Winston is seemingly killed by a spear through the chest, but the scene falls flat for three reasons. The first is the practical ramifications of the “death” in question. Winston gets hit in the chest with a spear which apparently knocks him unconscious, but he is not hurt by it because he is wearing a brass breastplate. The breastplate was set up previously in the book and makes sense for him to wear given the situation, but how did the other characters ever think he was dead when the spear only pierced his armor for a fraction of an inch? How did the spear even stand up straight from his chest with only that much penetration? He is also knocked unconscious by the spear to sell the fake death, but how does getting hit in the chest knock a person out? Besides the logistical problems of the scene, there is also the intended impact behind it. There was no sacrifice, no impact on a character arc, no elevation of the story in any way from this apparent death. If he had remained dead, it would have seemed incredibly worthless, driving home the point that the fake death is also of no consequence. Finally, there is the problem that this “death” has almost no impact because a mere two pages after Winston “dies” it is revealed that he is perfectly fine. There simply isn’t enough time for those around him to have any sort of reaction. This death, whether real or faked, would have landed much better if it factored into Winston’s arc and/or the development of the characters around him in some meaningful way. As it is, remove this “death” and absolutely nothing about the novel changes.
• MAJOR SPOILERS: Tucker makes some great attempts to deepen the world he has created, but a failure to capitalize and double down on this deepening makes the paper-thin façade evident and often confusing. For example, in the prologue when first encountering the gunpowder goblins. [He (Dan Baum) knew goblin hierarchy, only the leader of this group could decide if Dan should be killed. Unless the goblin was able to persuade him to parlay, but Dan was not that stupid.] Tucker initially doubles down on this detail when the goblin says, [“Tell me what you have to say, and I will pass it along,”] and Baum replies [“No chance…I know the rules. Now take me to the big chief.”] Then [The goblin pulled back the hammer on the pistol and Dan took the opportunity to lash out with him boot. (page 10)]. But if Baum knows goblin hierarchy prevents this goblin from killing him at this time, why does he attack? Are goblin rules more like guidelines? If so, why is Baum so confident to begin with? And most importantly, why is this information in the book if it is immediately seemingly contradicted? If the facts of a goblin hierarchy were leaned into instead of discarded, it could have allowed for a more interesting conclusion to the goblin problem or could have set up a future goblin interaction. A goblin named Brackish is compelled to join the crew later, but now I wonder if he actually has to protect his new clan and obey orders or if he can disobey if he wants to. Another example of a squandered opportunity to deepen the world involves the battle of Falls. There is a throwaway line [One of the wargs rolled onto its back and crushed the orc atop it. Free of its rider, the ill-treated creature turned and ate the broken screaming body of its former master. (page 108)]. It is neat to show that the warg/orc relationship is not symbiotic, and this scene is used to set up one character having a warg mount by the end of the book. But at Falls, this interaction comes out of nowhere and is very jarring. Winston has no feelings of amazement or confusion at this development, nor does the text of the book indicate this is an unexpected turn of events. Does this mean it is well-known that wargs hate their riders? If so, why do Baum and Winston not focus more fire on the warg riders, leaving their mounts free to attack the orcs? If it is new information that wargs are mistreated (on the whole, this seems unlikely to me), Winston should be puzzled or surprised by it while simultaneously filing it away for later since he is currently in a life-or-death situation. After he and Baum escape Falls, they could chat about how this changes their conceptions of wargs. This would add depth to the monsters in the book as well as foreshadow the fact that the big bad guy, Odin/Wontan, is not bad but simply manipulated by others. Additionally, a previous engagement with orcs and wargs could solidify them as a fighting unit while this battle challenges that preconception. But this missed opportunity highlights the bad guy problem with this book. They parade past so quickly they are more like shadows on a wall than fully fleshed out characters.