Review: Feels Incomplete
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2014
(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic copy of this book for review through Library Thing’s Member Giveaways program.)I’m not quite sure how to review AFTER THE DARKNESS: EPISODE ONE. The first piece in a serial, Episode One feels very much like the opening two chapters of a larger book. Which it is, in a way. Unlike other serials I’ve read, though (and I admit that my experience here is limited; heck, I sometimes avoid reading duologies and trilogies until all the novels in the series are released!), Episode One doesn’t stand on its own; the story here feels incomplete, and the world-building, in need of further exploration.Episode One opens with the kidnapping of 14-year-old Nadia and her younger sister Mila, seemingly for sale to slavers by mercenaries (or are they law enforcement officers?) Percy and Thomas. Nadia ends up at a Calcane City girls’ “hostel,” where she’s forced to compete with hundreds of other enslaved girls for tokens – and the entertainment of the elite, including her own kidnappers. We do not know what becomes of Mila, who wasn’t part of the contract, but simply found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s hinted that Nadia and Mila used to be part of the ruling class themselves – the term “level five” is bandied about – until their parents were betrayed by their compatriots. We’re not given any indication of her parents’ whereabouts, nor of how the girls have managed to care for themselves in the harsh, frozen landscape of Calcane City.The premise is somewhat interesting, though I’m not sure it’s enough to compel me to pick up Episode Two. That’s the problem with serials – the format makes it way too easy to quit, especially if the author fails to hook you early on. I know so little about the story that I don’t feel particularly invested in it.Plot aside, a few brief exchanges managed to turn me off altogether. For example, Percy doesn’t particularly care for his job, which apparently involves kidnapping “delinquents” and occasionally selling them for profit. He blames his wife Claudia for his icky feelings, rather than the social institutions that allow this oppression, or himself for engaging in it: “But still she is supposed to be the better half and in Percy’s eyes she has failed in her obligation to take the moral high road.” (This is why placing women on pedestals is a BAD THING: when we inevitably fall, we have a longer, more painful drop than the menfolk.) This bit of misogyny is all the more troubling considering it comes from someone who’s shaping up to be a “good guy” in the story.Percy also engages in a nasty bit of fat shaming: Claudia counts Percy’s earnings “licking her lips like a fat kid counting her slices of cake.” Because all fat kids gorge on junk food, and skinny kids only eat carrots.In summary: Claudia is greedy and evil and a shameless social climber who is ultimately to blame for all of her husband’s immoral deeds. Because, you know, women secretly rule the world with their vaginas. Or something.The Smashwords edition of the book contains a few editing errors, as well as an overuse of adjectives and overly long sentences that prove distracting. E.g.: “She playfully pouts at him, ‘But I wait for you,’ the eight-year-old whines as her father leans over and kisses her forehead, ‘I waited for you, waited sweetie, not wait,’ he smiles gently.”