Theft of Fire

This book was getting some hype on Twitter so I tried it. I don’t know if that was a great decision.

To start with the positive, after I pushed myself through the first 25% I was sufficiently hooked that I powered through the rest in one day. The character concepts are good, and the setting and realism are solid. The structure of the novel being focused tightly around three characters is enjoyable.

But the writing… It feels very “young adult”. A first-person narration where the narrator character is constantly expositing robs the setting of any mystery. And the way he keeps voicing his same thoughts to the reader, over and over, is tiresome. He’s constantly horny, mean, arrogant, self-loathing, oblivious… and just finding more and more ways to tell us this. This is what makes the first portion of the book so frustrating, as until the other two characters get introduced and given some depth and agency, you’re just struggling to care about his moping internal monologue. Which, to be clear, continues being ridiculous through the whole book! There’s just more going on to pull you along as a reader through that narrative sludge.

And yet, I became sufficiently attached to the characters and setting that I’ll probably pick up the forthcoming rest of the series. I just might kind of hate myself while doing so.

It's always weird when I review a book by a friend (or in this case the husband of a parasocial Twitter friend) ‘cause I know I'm supposed to give five stars. But I recently read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and gave that four stars, so understand my rating in that context: it was very good, I enjoyed it a lot, but it was “only” Heinlein-level quality.

This is a sort of Firefly-esque universe, with a good “classic sci-fi” feel. The author clearly knows actual science, but uses it merely to make the technical aspects accurate. It's engaging and keeps up a good fast-but-not-hectic pace throughout.

Highly enjoyable. Impatiently awaiting the eventual sequels.