Review: High-Energy and Chaotic Fun
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2014
This was my first real exposure to this specific niche of fantasy writing, and although I have always been a fan of action-packed novels and adventures, this seemed to be a bit closer to home (reality-wise), which is what the "steampunk" style is all about. I don't know much about this genre, but Pepper really grabbed me with his writing style; intensely well-crafted and stylized. My favorite element was undoubtedly his depiction of battles and fight scenes. They can be difficult to capture properly and if you are going to be involving a lot of them throughout a book, it's important to make them unique and memorable. Pepper really has a grasp on how to write fights, but I feel like his character development could use the same detailed care in some ways. Although we got good ideas of who these characters were, I sometimes felt like they were flat in their emotional responses, and their personalities weren't always consistent (at least in my opinion). However, I can't find much else at fault in this book and the pace is great. There were some lulls, but the valleys are what make the peaks even better. All in all, I will be reading the next book in the series, as the concept and premise are great, the action is solid, and as the series progresses, perhaps the character development will naturally fall in line. Nicely done.