Review: Very compelling plot
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2012
This book is a cut above many of Amazon's Kindle-published books.The author has strong talent as a writer, with a smooth writing style and the ability to create a very compelling plot. There were many twists and turns in a well-developed steampunk setting. The characters were psychologically believable. I am looking forward very much to the sequel.Of course like anything in life, there are several areas where improvements could be made. Although this book is good compared to many nowadays in terms of spelling and grammar, some mistakes were not caught. There were also a very few cases of awkward phrasing, where it was not entirely clear who was speaking or who was doing what to whom, without having to re-read.It's also possible to show the contrast between our world and a more-polite one, without so much use of the "f" word by the main character. I thought this was more implausible than offensive (more on this below), but many steampunk readers are going to find this offensive, so I think the author is sacrificing sales unnecessarily.Regarding the implausibility issue, I know this is a fantasy and I generally found Gwen's characterization to be highly entertaining. But it was still rather unbelievable how someone from her necessarily-limited hermit-like background could suddenly excel at almost any job facing her. The main issue here is how this reduces the dramatic tension: does she have real challenges to overcome?Please don't let any of this stop you from reading this book. But I want this author to keep on improving, and I think it is difficult to do so without constructive feedback.