Review: Great potential, but hit or miss in execution.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 16, 2013
Geekomancy centers around early twenty-something geek girl Ree Reyes, a barista at a coffee & comic shop with dreams of being a screenwriter who stumbles into a world of magic just behind everyday reality she never knew existed.If the premise sounds terribly cliche for urban fantasy that's because to some extent it is. The originality comes from the world and magic themselves. The "sorcerers" per se here wield collectibles powers fueled by fandom and nostalgia. This is a love letter to geek culture and makes clever use of it's absurd premise through copious amounts of pop culture references.Unfortunately the references are a bit too copious. I enjoyed this overall, and am a diehard geek that caught a very high percentage of what was thrown at me in this novel. But it was too much even for me at times.  The author is too in love with the concept and the references, to the point where the actual story routinely gets bogged down by overly wordy descriptions of tangential details.  There are lots of little things, like the D&D; stats next to everyone's name when they are introduced, that don't lead anywhere and aren't quite as amusing or clever as intended.Ree herself works against the narrative sometimes as well. She's the "perfect" geek girl in every way, and.. well "fetish" characteristics for lack of better words are given to her for apparently no other reason than to increase her appeal and then promptly forgotten. It's pointedly mentioned when she's introduced that she wears thick glasses and is legally blind without them. They are NEVER mentioned again. Not even to have her put in contact lenses.  She spends large portions of the book in combat, using her convenient black belts in Taekwondo and Hapkido, without ever being troubled by being legally blind or her glasses. She also mentions offhandedly in the middle of the book that she dated girls for a couple years, with no relevance to anything other than making sure the reader knows she's bisexual.Another moment that really rubbed me the wrong way was when she's just escaped captivity and is chasing someone to prevent a death, and STOPS TO BUY COFFEE. An excerpt:"After making the executive decision that a triple cappuccino was essential for morale and a functioning brain, Ree made her way across town to Miner Park, sipping her drink."Look, Ree has been up for a long time at this point and has been beaten and battered. I get it. If the moment was played with more urgency or the point made that she'd never be able to drag herself after the culprit without some caffeine it's be better. But again to me it seems like describing things in a cute and clever way took over, with the unfortunate side effect that the main character doesn't seem to be moving with the needed urgency with lives literally on the line. There are other things in this vein throughout the book that really took me out of the narrative and dispelled the immersion that had been building.My last criticism of Ree's tale is there are some incredibly convenient plot turns used for drama. Where they led was interesting enough, but the story would have been stronger with a couple less coincidences.I know I've gone on at length about what I didn't like, but I want to make sure there's enough here so that readers can make up their own mind about  trying this. Again I did like Ree's adventure overall. There's a good underlying story here with a very imaginative (if ridiculous) magic system. The author just tends to get in his own way. This could've been something outstanding with more focus and a fair amount of streamlining.A slow start and the things I mentioned above make it hard to recommend, but if you're patient and can stand the style there is a lot to like in Ree's debut.