cavalary's reviews
269 reviews

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Note: The review refers to the Uncut and Extended 2014 Edition.

It must be said that Prophecies Awakening does start quite interestingly and shows plenty of promise early on. It even briefly hints towards being rather different, and for the space of one scene made me think of [b:The Black Jewels Trilogy|47953|The Black Jewels Trilogy Daughter of the Blood, Heir to the Shadows, Queen of the Darkness (The Black Jewels, #1-3)|Anne Bishop|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389911809s/47953.jpg|46936], yet then it skips forward to the "present" and buries itself under pretty much every fantasy cliché there is, only seeming to try to come back up for air during the all-too-brief visit to She'Ma'Ryn. Whether that small part and the few early hints actually are a sign of things to come by the end of the series or not, it remains to be seen, but as far as this book is concerned, they appear accidents more than anything else.
Not that there's anything wrong with an unoriginal story and setting in itself, at least not from where I'm standing. You could have a story that piles together most of the clichés in the book and I won't care as long as it's written well, has some interesting characters and locations that actually feel "real" and there's a significant emotional impact. Immerse me in that world, make me understand those characters and care for their fate and the events taking place and I'll get all sorts of excited... Yet unfortunately none of that happens here after the first few chapters, which are admittedly quite decent.

The term that keeps popping into my mind when trying to characterize the writing, at least after those first few chapters, is "immature". There's this feeling that the author simply decided to write an epic story without going through the stages, and that at one point, early on, he got too frustrated with how long it took and how difficult it was and simply decided to get to the end, regardless of how it turned out and discarding everything that didn't directly help him reach those final few scenes he perhaps had in mind from the beginning. The fact that this book is so short by high fantasy standards seems to only support that assumption even further.
What probably makes it worse for me is that I recognize a lot of the style issues I struggle with, and because of which I write so little and say that what I did manage to write so far can only very generously be called a rough draft. Was tempted to say this reads largely like I think, when I try to put thoughts into words right away, before starting to struggle to also find a way to express them that seems at least decent. The fact that many of the style issues strewn throughout this book are the same ones I struggle to avoid until, at times, I just give up completely may make me judge an author who doesn't seem interested in eliminating them somewhat more harshly than others would, but it's undeniable that Prophecies Awakening is plagued by poor writing, and that may be putting it mildly.

Sure, a great story written poorly may still make for a decent read if you care more about the substance than the form, and I do need to point out that I can quite "see" plenty of scenes, and most notably the battles. Many are particularly flashy and, for lack of a better term, at times senselessly "magical", appearing meant to tick all the boxes on a list of clichés specific to run-of-the-mill fantasy movies as well, yet I definitely have the feeling that Prophecies Awakening would have done much better as a movie. It wouldn't have been something to write home about, but it does seem to have the pacing and the scene cuts of one, and there are incomparably fewer fantasy movies than books, so the demands and expectations from one, especially from one marketed as something of an "indie", are far lower as well and I could see them being met by something like this.
For a book, however, depth, emotional impact and immersion are paramount, which means that Prophecies Awakening is hampered by the dialogues that don't flow in any way, the largely one-dimensional characters and, most of all, by the almost complete lack of emotion far more than by the poor overall writing style. Most dialogues feel like summaries of dialogues, jump stages or needlessly describe right away, seeming nothing more than another method of moving everything forward to the desired end as quickly as possible. The moments when a few characters may appear to mean to start becoming "real" are few and far between, and never last. Otherwise, events that should have an extreme emotional impact, that should generate powerful reactions, simply wash over them, any attempts to display any sort of emotion falling entirely flat. In addition, characters meant to be skilled, responsible or wise also tend to make incredibly stupid choices or have shockingly immature moments. And let's not even mention the attempts to portray romance...
There are also plenty of things that don't add up, at times this seeming to be the result of the author rewriting certain parts multiple times, making additions and removals without properly keeping track of the consequences. Other passages and events feel forced just to get the story to certain a point in a certain way, with the least trouble and in the least amount of pages. And I must also mention that certain elements feel too much as if taking place in a video game, without this way of thinking being masked nearly as much as using it in a book requires.

Last but definitely not least, for the amount of effort that seems to have been put into developing the magic system, considering those Latin phrases and the specific descriptions of the effects of certain spells, it seems particularly poorly utilized and all over the place. One moment characters are able to do amazing things, the next they seem to either forget all about what'd be most useful or be unable to repeat their previous feats when the need is greatest, at times magic suddenly seeming to become too weak to get the job done when it should have been easy. Under these circumstances, all that effort will probably be wasted on most readers, who are likely to see those phrases as little more than gibberish to skip over and not care too much for accurate descriptions of effects of spells that will never get used again, no matter how great the need for them may be.

To conclude, the author definitely likes the genre, he may have some interesting ideas up his sleeve for the rest of the series and there may be a decent, if entirely unoriginal and far from deep, fantasy story to be found even in Prophecies Awakening itself, but it lacks the characters, the impact and the immersion, and what it doesn't lack is buried under the poor writing style.

Too real for my liking... Books, movies and computer games are my ways of escaping from reality; something that I try to do as often as possible. So I don't want to bump into something too real in a book.
But, aside from that, it was all right.

Being a single book, it lacks the depth of fantasy series, since in fantasy you need to do a lot of writing to create the world the action is happening in. But, taking it as it is, it's good enough.

It moves at a crawling pace, 80% of the book takes place in three nights, a good part of it are David's memories concerning Merrick from when he was still human, it all seems to head for a single event... Simply lacks depth.

Then things turn around towards the end and it gets interesting.

Spoiler

Makes you awfully interested in Talamasca's Elders, Lestat's back, though I can't see what more could he ever do after Memnoch, can't go higher than that, and there's a new coven of extremely powerful vampires.

I still say Louis should have died though. And it would have been interesting, also very justified, for David and Merrick to let, and actually help, Lestat in destroying the Talamasca after their threats.

As it is, it makes a promise for the books written after it but goes back on it even before this one's end.

Stunning, but not in a good way, reading Oryx and Crake is like reading the damaged mind of a train wreck's nevertheless doomed survivor as it replays the details while struggling to cope with his current impossible situation. It's at times raw, often brutal, and depressing and frightening throughout. It should come with trigger warnings for those who already have eyes to see and a brain to think while at the same time, and for the exact same reasons, likely needing to be required reading for those who still believe in "solutions" which will allow mankind to continue on a more or less "business as usual" path.
What makes it worse for the former and "better" for the latter is that it doesn't portray some distant future or require suspension of disbelief. Instead, it describes events which may well happen if we continue on our current path, mixed with some which already have or currently are happening, many of the former being a direct result of the latter. This isn't merely a possible future, but, at least in part, a probable one at the moment, and not centuries from now but one which may well be mere decades away. In fact, some of the described "prerequisites" of the eventual outcome, even some of the worst ones, may become reality any day, and some already have.

The above mainly applies to about 80% of the book. Commenting on the last 20% would require a long piece which would stray even farther away from an actual review, so I'll just say that Crake identified the problem, but the solution was an entirely different matter. Then I'll return to the book itself and say that, while perhaps not necessarily good in terms of characters, action, pacing or other elements that would normally be analyzed, it's definitely valuable. And while I didn't necessarily like it, I definitely appreciate it. And it definitely remains stunning throughout, in more ways than one.

This book was obviously meant as the first in a series that never continued, the sequel promised for 2012 never seeing the light of day, or at least not yet. However, this is no extended introduction, quite the contrary, as it definitely doesn't lack in action and does complete its part of the story satisfyingly enough. And I can't complain about the writing style or any lack of polish either.
Would have needed to be at the very least twice the size for any chance at a better rating though, and to have filled that space with more information about the world and characters, and in fact with more characters, places and events. As it is, it's a well-written but too short single adventure, taking place in a single location and involving one small group and one problem. It hints at epic fantasy and some interesting twists, but in fact offers only plain sword and sorcery and feels perhaps a bit rushed even for that.

Was having a look around itch.io when I stumbled into this, a free first book in a series, originally in Dutch but translated to English by the author, and also connected to a game. And, well, let's just say I wasted my time, including by adding it here, so you won't have to.
In short, it's absolutely full of mistakes of every kind and, while I don't know how the original version was written and it is possible that the author's grasp of English was far too poor to allow for any passable translation and he twisted things around and threw together whatever first came to mind, the story itself is so childish and simply worthless when judged according to any criteria used for anything which might in any way be published that even decent writing couldn't save it. All I got from it was the feeling of reading a schoolboy's writing assignment, stretched to about 100 pages yet still rushed through and poor enough that he was laughed at while reading it in class even though he probably still thinks it's cool. The fact that he says he was born in 1975 and therefore that couldn't actually be the case makes it even more embarrassing.