I loved this book. Superheroes, noir, mystery, robots, blimps, the kitchen sink. One of my favorite books of the yer. ( )

This was not the book I thought I was going to get. The reviews and cover blurb advertised alternate history, dimensional rifts, super heroes, gangsters and detectives. It had all those, but the story felt like they'd all been put into a food-processor and roughly chopped together. Nothing fit. There was very little cause and effect and zero character motivation (other than simple survival). It felt a lot like an old comic book or television show where stuff happens because the story needs it to happen. There is no 'why'. Disappointing. ( )

This is a debut novel for this Author, and despite what the cover may lead the reader to believe this book is about, once they start reading they will discover it is something more. Unfortunately, despite this book having a lot going for it, it didn’t quite reach the spot with me.

The reason for its shortcomings for me, all lie with the characters; right from the beginning they seem to be lacking something. The initial character we are introduced to is gone before the reader really has a chance to get to know him, he is replaced by the main protagonist, who is marginally more interesting, but not enough to make the reader connect with him or grab their attention fully. Many of the characters that appear in the book are never written with any real depth and, even though this is explained about halfway through the book, the reader spends much of their time surrounded by shallow characters. The characters have very little substance, not enough to carry a whole book, which is a shame in this particular novel.

Fortunately the setting of the book and the mystery contained in its pages were engrossing enough to keep me reading to the end. The setting is a parallel universe and brings a very steampunk feel to the pseudo-New York 1930’s written there with robots, prohibition, super heroes, unseen enemies and robots. This fictional universe is well written and the Author leaves it wide open to the reader’s imagination to explore and populate as they will. The overall feeling that the reader will gain from the atmosphere created in the book may well remind them of a Philip K. Dick novel, but which one will depend on how they interpret this novel.

I would recommend this book to readers of the time travel and fantasy genres.

Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2013/10/22/review-empire-state-empire-state-1-adam-ch...




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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This is the first book I've abandoned in ages, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I'll try again another time but for now it was just too much of a slog.

This is a debut novel for this Author, and despite what the cover may lead the reader to believe this book is about, once they start reading they will discover it is something more. Unfortunately, despite this book having a lot going for it, it didn’t quite reach the spot with me.

The reason for its shortcomings for me, all lie with the characters; right from the beginning they seem to be lacking something. The initial character we are introduced to is gone before the reader really has a chance to get to know him, he is replaced by the main protagonist, who is marginally more interesting, but not enough to make the reader connect with him or grab their attention fully. Many of the characters that appear in the book are never written with any real depth and, even though this is explained about halfway through the book, the reader spends much of their time surrounded by shallow characters. The characters have very little substance, not enough to carry a whole book, which is a shame in this particular novel.

Fortunately the setting of the book and the mystery contained in its pages were engrossing enough to keep me reading to the end. The setting is a parallel universe and brings a very steampunk feel to the pseudo-New York 1930’s written there with robots, prohibition, super heroes, unseen enemies and robots. This fictional universe is well written and the Author leaves it wide open to the reader’s imagination to explore and populate as they will. The overall feeling that the reader will gain from the atmosphere created in the book may well remind them of a Philip K. Dick novel, but which one will depend on how they interpret this novel.

I would recommend this book to readers of the time travel and fantasy genres.

Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2013/10/22/review-empire-state-empire-state-1-adam-ch...




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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