Three Parts Dead

DNF - PG 22

Why?

Some time back, I bought this interactive fiction text ‘game' called Choice of the Deathless. I thought it was pretty fun, even if the world building was crazy and, more often than not, encouraged me to skim anything that wasn't directly related to my choices or the optional romance. (My two major reasons for playing these games instead of just reading a book.)

Time passed and this book was brought back to my mind. I mean, we have a black woman on the cover (of a spec fiction book, no less!) and the world sounds delightfully quirky. So I start reading it and realize, about five pages into it, that this world seems familiar. Beyond that, the writing style sounds familiar. Then I remember that game and look up the author of it and, much to my unsurprise, they are both written by the same author.

That being said, this is definitely not the book for me. If I would have realized who the author was, I probably wouldn't have even tried to read this book because while I love my fantasy and sci-fi and steampunk and all that good stuff, I much prefer light world building to heavy world building, which, as I could have guessed from the game, is the author's thing. (Even better is background world building where the building is definitely there, but the author lets it stand on it's own and doesn't force it down your throat.)

If you played the game and loved it, you'll probably like this book. If you loved this book, you'll probably like the game. Now I'm off to find something, I'm not embarrassed to admit, simpler.