Jarrad Maiers

Charming little book. A good place to jump off from The Paris Library. It is the characters that really make everything work well, strange yet lovable. In a time when it feels like community is falling apart, reading a book about a strong community that comes together is refreshing.

The really impressive thing about this book is the description of the setting. William Gibson once said that all science fiction is really about place, and with that in mind The Dervish House is incredibly well described. There is a flavor to the city that makes you want to explore it on your own...preferably armed. But what didn't hold my attention was most of the characters. I enjoyed the exploits of the young functionally deaf detective with his nano-bot toys, and the retired psychological economist trying to prove to the world that he is still useful, and the young woman searching for a mellified man, but there are other main characters in this book that I just found distracting and annoying. It all came together well in the end, and it was well written, but I found myself bored through a lot of it mainly because I just couldn't get myself to care about many of the major plot twists and characters.

A good little short story that'll kill an hour. Good fun if you want to explore a little more of the Reckoners series. Not necessary for the series as a whole, but you won't get a lot out of it if you didn't read the first in the series first.