Merely thinking up a cool idea isn’t enough, you need to do something with it. It has a very similar problem to Permanence – a lot of cool ideas that are great in concept, but without the execution to make them compelling. The sets are pretty, but there’s only so much to say about that. The villains are painted too strongly as villainous to provoke empathy, and the heroes don’t do much to cheer about. Not Recommended, unless this is exactly your type of book (and you know it if it is).Ĭlub Review: Unfortunately there isn’t a great amount to chew over in a discussion setting. While it works well as a mood piece, those sorts of works are usually written as short stories for good reason. The book feels unsatisfying because the protagonists are passive, rarely initiating anything themselves - merely reacting to this neat world. She doesn’t actually do a single thing of any importance until literally the very last scene of the book. Liv is slowly stripped down to her constituent parts over the course of her journey, which is a neat concept but doesn’t have as much impact as it should. The world itself is beautifully rendered, with great locations and extremely cool chaotic environs in the non-Made section of the world, where reality is still somewhat fluid and objects can change when you aren’t looking – and which doesn’t seem to make much difference to anything, aside from making a great backdrop. The super-human powers that rule the two factions are fascinating, and could have been a great examination of how non-human intellects interact with humans, and how intelligences without the ability to directly manipulate the world can still have huge effects by offering humans things they want in exchange… but it was never explored in much detail.

A young psychologist (Liv) must find and cure an insane old man who’s mind may hold the key to ending the war permanently.īrief Book Review: An interesting read, but not a compelling one. Synopsis: Two factions war for control of a Steampunk Old West.

The half made world