2.5ish stars.
Underwhelmed. A lot of great individual elements, but there was so much missing at the same time. I wanted to like it more than I did. Especially based on the imaginative setting, the interesting crowd of POVs, the great cover, and the concept of an ORCAMANCER, hello!
I enjoyed Miller’s YA novel, The Art of Starving, a lot more because I liked the voice he gave to his protagonist. Without a first-person narrator to ground things here, Miller gets carried away with pretentiously profound prose. “Literary ennui” as a reading buddy so adequately describes it. Sort of like he’s trying to be Jeff VanderMeer but without the eerie sense of atmosphere; pretty but empty. I also feel like something about his sentence structure is hard to follow at times.
There’s a lot of exposition and I ended up skimming a lot. The ideas seem cool, but the actual reading part went very slowly for me. The entire time there was something missing, some spark, that prevented me from getting excited.
I’ve noticed comparisons to recent books, Autonomous and New York 2140, based on similar themes and content. Autonomous works better because it’s simpler, and fewer POVs keep it from getting cluttery. NY 2140 works better because its humanity and vision are easier to relate to.
I’m 1 for 2 with Miller’s books. Willing to give it another go.
Mr. Philip's Library 