post apocolypse ancient god's return to rebuild the planet - too strange for me ( )

The premise is very interesting. The characters - fascinating. The world-building is a hot mess. You're pretty much assaulted by images and glimpses of information from which you have to try and assemble what is happening in the world.

And there is crap loads of what's happening. This series isn't called Apocalypto for nothing. Environmental terrorists are killing the world. There are explosions, weird mutations, plagues and women becoming barren everywhere. Char is whisked away from the planet on a space ship where she meets its captain, Jake, a bastard son of The Imperor. As the world dying and new Gods arise, her future is full of tragedies, prophecies and very fragile love.

Read the book if you feel brave enough to embrace the madness. At least it's not boring. ( )

I started this book once and put it down because it was boring. Then picked it up again and about 20% though it became interesting and I had trouble putting it down. It didn't end like you think it would.
( )

This book was a rare did-not-finish for me. I got about 80% in and just couldn't go further. There was just a huge disconnect between myself and the storyline and characters. The characters themselves felt disconnected from their own story and everything that was happening around them. The world building was done without contextual clues or explanation, so it felt as if I was constantly having to make guesses or if I was missing out on some private joke. It made for a slightly uncomfortable read and further distanced me from the characters. There are also atrocities in this book (horrible events taking place to move the story forward), but they didn't feel like atrocities. I felt no connection to the events, and it also felt like the characters felt no connection to the events. The events felt skimmed over to me, almost, and it was like I was getting a root canal while being so far gone on meds that I didn't care. Most of the time, it also appeared that the characters were themselves living in a zoned-out disconnect.

I think that sums up my feeling on this book - disconnected.

And maybe that is what the author was going for and I completely missed the point. So, please take my review with a grain of salt. It is, after all, just my personal opinion. ( )

Loved this novelette. The writing is pretty tight, and it's an interesting story of near-future eco-disaster, eco-terrorism, and space adventure. Woven through the story is a small romance. There's a lot of good story here, and I wish it had been developed more slowly, fleshing out some of the background, such as the Defenders of Gaia, the Talibanos Unidos, and the various orbiting stations. It's almost as if this story is written as an interlude (one can hope?) Clearly, the other unexplained elements, such as Durga and Corcovado, that show up late in the story, will be addressed in the next installment (please!)

I'm a little confused about whether this has elements of fantasy, or if it is meant to be straight-up science fiction, and have to admit (as a personal preference,) I'm hoping for a sci-fi explanation for the latter 25% of the story.

edit: the author has noted that this is a "paranormal" story, which (I think,) answers the query above. (Somehow I missed that in my first glance over the Amazon description.) I'm good with that, and looking forward to Spiderwork. ( )