Review: ~ Review by Optimist ♰King’s Wench♰
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 17, 2014
3.5ish out of 5 StarsFor original review see The Prism Book Alliance Blog onlineOrdinarily it annoys the bejesus out of me to have an author repeat things, but I actually appreciated it here. There are frequent time jumps and many acronyms which could easily have become overwhelming. Ms. McAuley did a great job of not always using the acronym, repeating the important things and delineating the time jumps. She also gives a time line as well as a list of characters at the end.The world building is good. This being my first experience with this author I can tell she has an active imagination and this version of Earth is a living breathing entity in her mind. Her strengths lie in describing it in palpable detail from the locations to the scents. Quite engaging indeed. I loved the Olympics tie in with the 5 Olympic rings/5 Superpowers. There hasn’t been an Olympics in 300 years and this one sounded very gladiatoresque. Always a win in my book. The Olympic stadium even has an underground series of tunnels. RAWR!As for Merq and Armise, I have this… fondness for big, muscle-y guys who are bottoms and/or submissive and Armise is “massive”. He’s about twice the size of Merq. He always puts up a good fight-another weakness of mine-and he always loses. Nothing I like better than a violent fight for dominance where the presumed loser wins. Maybe it’s a David and Goliath thing. Maybe it’s the unexpectedness of it all. Why ask why? The relationship between these two is the heartbeat of this installment and I suspect the entire series. The whole can I trust you? Why do I feel this way about my enemy? Why do I want him so badly? Why does he keep showing up and doing things that make me question him? thing is a great relationship and tension builder. The flashback retelling of the 13 years he and Armise have been crashing into one another facilitates the character development to a degree. Well, at least on Merq’s part. Merq doesn’t trust anyone but he is loyal, perhaps to a fault. His mantra proves that he is a soldier to his very core:One breath.Inhale.Hesitation is my enemy.Solitude my ally.Death the only real victory.Exhale.Arsime is a bit of an enigma at this point, so I’m eager to get to the next installment and hopeful his motivations and characterization will be delved into a bit more.What I had trouble with was the catalyst of the Border Wars; it seemed a bit flimsy. Maybe it will get fleshed out in the next installment and make more sense, but at this point I don’t get it. The characterizations need more substance than Merq having a lip piercing and being a bad ass soldier, though I cannot tell a lie the piercing holds promise. Also, the time jumps were well demarcated but nonetheless jarring which is why I’m wavering in the 3.5ish stars range.