E-Book, 160 Pages
Adult/ Sci-Fi/ Novella
By: Django Wexler
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
I need to be honest and say that novellas are not my favorites. I feel it takes a super talented author to contain a full story perfectly in such a small number of words. However, I think it is a very good form to experience some authors writing and see if I click with it. I always wanted to read Wexler books but never got the chance to. When I saw this book with its gorgeous cover and the fact that it is published by Tor made me want to pick it up pretty quick.
I also need to mention that I am not the biggest Sci-Fi reader, I prefer Fantasy and that’s just a personal preference. I think the first thought that comes to mind when we see this book is right there on the cover where Sylvain Neuvel said GIANT. FREAKING. ROBOT!
And I have to agree with him. I think it is not a new idea because I have watched movies about it before but I wanted to experience it in a written formula.
The thing is that the book doesn’t have much robots fighting other than 2 main fights. The story focuses on two characters Kas and Zhi and how a bet between them that goes wrong stars a chain of unfortunate events for both of them.
The writing was good, I mean Wexler alredy has experience as an author and I could tell that but I don’t know why it wasn’t divided into chapters and it was just like one very long chapter with dividers between the sections. There was switching between the two characters which was a problem since they had a similar voice and I think it should have been told from KAs POV only.
I did not have strong connections to the characters, I think they were okay and one character death had zero impact on me which was kind of surprising. Also the romance was kind of mechanical, I wasn’t a big fan of the relationship! The world however was very well written for a novella and I believe it could have been easily expanded into a full novel with the world Wexler created. I liked the three generations and how the hierarchy still affects the modern world, the technology is good too and we could have got more robot fights if the book was longer which could have been more satisfying.
The plot was very predictable for me and the whole bet thing irked me because there were many angles that did not make sense to me when I think about it. I believe the word count forced the author to make a few scenes convenient for the story. I think I was hoping for more action and drama!
Summary: My expectations for the story kind of made me slightly disappointed specially for a prestigious author as Wexler. The writing and World-building were very satisfying but the characters and plot simply weren’t. However, I am interested in Wexler full novels even more right now!
The book prescription 