In a word: stupid. The book. And myself. Let me tell you how insipid I am. I got sucked in by the cool book cover. As did a ton of other people, apparently. As Eh?Eh! said in their Goodreads review of 2/14/11, “knives!, duel!, blood!, hell!, legalised (because we're in Britain) knife fights!, blood!, black!, endless winter!, two people!, save!, this is their story!” Yep, that’s pretty good. Someone named “Megan” wrote in her Goodreads review of 10/16/11, “I’m not going to lie, I bought this book for the cover. I didn’t read the blurb, I didn’t read the first page, all of the little steps that bridge the gap between a book and my bookshelves flew out the window in the face of that cover. Knife fights! Blood! Duels! Sounds most excellent to me. When the book arrived I dared to think I had been rewarded for my rash purchase. The back blurb promised a dystopic future Britain where knife fighting had been legalised and where a giant wall had been erected around the city. Sounds very awesome, yes? At the very least it sounds finishable, and yet I barely made it half way through.”

And yet, to continue quoting Megan, “Let’s start with the book’s main conceit: Knife fighting: it’s legal! Why? Pfft, we don’t need to know a silly little thing like that, do we? And honestly, I would have been happy with minimal explanation of why knife fighting (to the death, mind you) was legal, if we actually got to see some, you know, knife fighting. As I said, I made it to the midway point, and not once had anyone actually had a fight involving knives. There was a lot of posturing and ‘why sir, you have offended me! I demand satisfaction!’ going on, but actual knife fighting? Not so much. I’m not saying that nothing happened, but it did feel like Blackthorne (I vaguely recall that this is a well known author's alias, but can't for the life of me remember who...) completely wasted the potential of his world. Here’s this big brotherish dystopic future London, but not one of the events of the first half of the book couldn’t have taken place in a book set in current day London. What’s the point of cool futuristic setting if you don’t make the most of it? Or at least something of it?”

So, this book is supposed to be a sci fi book, I guess of a dystopian near-future Britain where knife fighting/dueling to the death has been legalized, although I have no idea why. Apparently, there is a giant wall surrounding either the entire island of Britain or London, it’s hard to tell. There’s really no mention of it in the book either than on the back cover. And one of the key characters is some type of therapist we meet early on, Suzanne, I believe. She has a unique ability to hypnotize anyone within seconds and cure them of practically anything and even improve them through this process. The author does this thing where she talks to her patients and somehow her words simply fix whatever is wrong with them, or make them think in a whole new way, seemingly like magic. She'll say something like “you are no longer shy, etc.” and suddenly, no more shyness for that character. It’s completely unbelievable. Since Blackthorne has taken great pains to set this book in the “real” world, given the dystopian unreality of things, this strikes me as odd and hard to believe. Superhuman traits. Doesn’t make sense.

But then there’s the superhuman ex-soldier, Josh Cumberland, who is hired by a rich dolt to track down his missing son, Richard. Richard is “hoplophobic,” meaning he's afraid of knives, which isn’t very helpful if you're living in a society where people can challenge you to a knife duel at any moment. He goes missing after his first therapy session with Suzanne, who was hired by Richard's father to rid him of his phobia. Suzanne and Josh team up to find Richard and things progress from there just like any romance/action movie.

A lot of people complain that Josh is simply a Jason Bourne clone. I don’t know. I don’t know because I gave up before I got far enough in the book to find out. I just thought the book was too stupid to continue. There weren’t any knife fights. Suzanne’s powers were too Justice League. Josh was an action figure. Britain was 1984. What was the point? I didn’t derive any satisfaction out of reading any of this. I thought the author was somewhat clumsy at writing this, as though his scenes were written hastily, going for shock value in lieu of something more solid. It’s hard to describe, but it felt a little amateurish to me. The cover looked so cool and the blurbs on the front and back made it sound so cool and I got sucked in by them and I feel like an idiot, because that’s not usually what happens to me. Oh well. Live and learn. I won’t be buying anything by this author again. Stupid premise, stupid book. Not recommended. ( )

(Re-posted from http://theturnedbrain.blogspot.com)

I’m not going to lie, I bought this book for the cover. I didn’t read the blurb, I didn’t read the first page, all of the little steps that bridge the gap between a book and my bookshelves flew out the window in the face of that cover. Knife fights! Blood! Duels! Sounds most excellent to me.


When the book arrived I dared to think I had been rewarded for my rash purchase. The back blurb promised a dystopic future Britain where knife fighting had been legalised and where a giant wall had been erected around the city. Sounds very awesome, yes? At the very least it sounds finishable, and yet I barely made it half way through.


Let start with the book’s main conceit: Knife fighting: it’s legal! Why? Pfft, we don’t need to know a silly little thing like that, do we? And honestly, I would have been happy with minimal explanation of why knife fighting (to the death, mind you) was legal, if we actually got to see some, you know, knife fighting. As I said, I made it to the midway point, and not once had anyone actually had a fight involving knives. There was a lot of posturing and ‘why sir, you have offended me! I demand satisfaction!’ going on, but actual knife fighting? Not so much. I’m not saying that nothing happened, but it did feel like Blackthorne (I vaguely recall that this is a well known author's alias, but can't for the life of me remember who...) completely wasted the potential of his world. Here’s this big brotherish dystopic future London, but not one of the events of the first half of the book couldn’t have taken place in a book set in current day London. What’s the point of cool futuristic setting if you don’t make the most of it? Or at least something of it?


And the giant wall surrounding Britain? Maybe the back cover was referring to a metaphorical giant wall, because no mention of such was made in the book, or at least no mention that I noticed. Admittedly, I could have missed it. Blackthorne's brand of worldbuilding seems to be offhand sentences like, “oh, yes, America has three presidents now” with no explanation or follow up or, worse of all, no real evidence that it effects the characters lives in any way. Or at another point he mentions that because knife fighting is legal hardly anyone owns or uses guns any more. Um, ok? More confusingly is the therapist character (always a sign of memorable characters when they have to be referred to by their profession...), who can possibly read minds or something. Maybe? She does this thing where she talks to her patients and somehow her words just fix whatever is wrong with them, or make them think in a whole new way, like magic. She'll say something like 'you are no longer shy' and bam! no more shyness. But for all intents and purposes Blackthorne has set his book in the “real” world and there are no other hints of supernatural happenings. It’s very strange.


I can accept magic therapy powers, but what I can’t accept is magic therapy powers that the author wants me to believe aren’t magic. Trying to figure it out kept pulling me out of the book. What also kept yanking me out was trying to get a handle on the moods of the characters. Scenes like this took place pretty much every time any of the character’s spoke:

Josh (or John. Possibly Jake) clenched his fists, a scowl crossing his lips, “um, yeah, ok I guess,” he said.

Do you see? His body language suggests angry alpha male, his words suggest meek submissive dude. The dialogue in this book was consistently like this, completely at odds with the context of the scene. It’s pretty much impossible to lose yourself in a book when your jarred out the story every couple of pages, you know?


Having not finished the book, I can not say if these faults are with it the whole way through. There’s a chance the last half is one long knife fighting blood bath, but even the possibility of that wasn’t enough to let me ignore its flaws and keep forcing myself through it. ( )

This disappointed. I've heard others' excitement about this publisher (Angry Robot) and the blurb for this sounded fantastic, a blurb that caused me to lay down a Don LaFontaine voice as I read it with certain words and phrases punching out - knives!, duel!, blood!, hell!, legalised (because we're in Britain) knife fights!, blood!, black!, endless winter!, two people!, save!, this is their story!...cue the swelling strings and tourniquet off your limbs! Doesn't that all imply that knives will be a huge part of the story? That knife fighting will be central? It deceived me. Deceived me!

!!!

It begins with a terrific but confusing (which should've been a clue) action scene where the man who turns out to be the main character is presented - and I don't want to describe the scene because it's pretty cool they way it reveals what knives are supposed to mean to this society - with anger problems and domestic troubles. It loses hold of that direction right away. Sigh. This book was so much better in my head! We're then introduced to a lady therapist who seems to use very effective and swift forms of hypnosis. Later, one of her patients is a young boy who plays a central role in blowing open a conspiracy/evil plot...yes, I'm afraid it turned into a standard action novel. It all about political upheaval and world events in broad strokes with the telescope (yes, telescope, not microscope) on one person. The description of the political state of the US was kinda funny, in a horrible way.

The hero, who is a cardboard cutout of the usual action hero, seems to have his full name used more often than necessary. Jason Bourne, I mean Josh Cumberland, is the baddest a-kicking mofo. Driven by memories of his family, Miles Haverford, I mean Josh Cumberland, will stop at nothing to defeat his enemies! Who are these fools who would go against this unstoppable force known as Jack McClure, I mean Josh Cumberland? You barely figure it out! Because it's confusing!

Gripes: Where did the knives go??? The female therapist is barely described until late in the book where her tragic past is abruptly revealed. Every good character is an expert at something, annoyingly expert. The freakin' endless winter didn't even occur until the very freakin' end and it's not actual weather, it's a nuclear winter.

That last climactic scene...remember the movie Gamer?

It's okay, for what it is. I was expecting more. 5 stars to Angry Robot for being intriguing (although sucky for not getting the real feel of the book across). ( )

While this is, perhaps, a good book for someone else, it wasn't the best reading experience for me. I never connected with the characters and found them a bit dull. I also felt that the story was slow. The blurb on the cover is a bit misleading as to the content, and it wasn't at all what I expected when I purchased it. That said, the dystopian elements and the changes in the world governments were interesting. This is the sort of story I'd probably prefer to see done in a visual medium rather than in a written one. ( )

I really liked this book. It is another winner from Angry Robot. I like the description of the future London, as described in this book. It was realistic and interesting to see where how the author described life and place. It is similar to our own, but different enough to make you believe it is a different time. The characters were also very interesting and interacted well with each other. The back stories of each was believable and made me want to find out what their futures were going to be. Overall this book is highly recommended, I can't wait to read the next in the series. ( )