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The Soul Key
Aug. 7th, 2009 06:09 pmI'm almost finished with the latest Deep Space Nine relaunch title, "The Soul Key," by Olivia Woods.
Woods is apparently a new writer; her first book was the last DS9R title, last year's "Fearful Symmetry." I'm afraid I have to report that Wood's sophomore effort is a major disappointment.
"The Soul Key" was reportedly broken off "Fearful Symmetry" when that tale grew too long in the telling. That leaves this book feeling oddly unfinished -- it's only half a tale, but the author felt compelled to repeat tons of material from the first half.
But that's not the only problem with this mess of a book.
It's plot is convoluted, and the pacing is, frankly, weak.
As for the structure... It starts off with an exciting prologue, then goes into extended flashbacks for, literally, the next 140-odd pages. That's almost half of this 300-page book. I was really tempted to skip from the end of the prologue right to the beginning of Chapter 15, when the story picks up again in the "present".
It's doubly sad that, by the time I got through 14 chapters of Iliana/Fake Intendant backstory, I didn't care any more about what was happening with Vaughn and Kira. By the time the writer got around to telling us what was up with them, I was so annoyed with this book I couldn't rekindle interest in the narrative. **SIGH!**
I just read "Fearful Symmetry" for the first time last week -- I saved it until TSK was about to come out. That was probably a mistake -- perhaps my complaints are based on reading the two books back to back. I kept coming across whole chapters in TSK that seem to recapitulate material I just read in FS. I wanted to scream "Get on with it!"
It might be an interesting exercise to do a mash-up of "Fearful Symmetry" and "The Soul Key," take out all the redundant stuff, put what's left in chronological order, and see how it reads. As-is, it's pretty disappointing.
Woods is apparently a new writer; her first book was the last DS9R title, last year's "Fearful Symmetry." I'm afraid I have to report that Wood's sophomore effort is a major disappointment.
"The Soul Key" was reportedly broken off "Fearful Symmetry" when that tale grew too long in the telling. That leaves this book feeling oddly unfinished -- it's only half a tale, but the author felt compelled to repeat tons of material from the first half.
But that's not the only problem with this mess of a book.
It's plot is convoluted, and the pacing is, frankly, weak.
As for the structure... It starts off with an exciting prologue, then goes into extended flashbacks for, literally, the next 140-odd pages. That's almost half of this 300-page book. I was really tempted to skip from the end of the prologue right to the beginning of Chapter 15, when the story picks up again in the "present".
It's doubly sad that, by the time I got through 14 chapters of Iliana/Fake Intendant backstory, I didn't care any more about what was happening with Vaughn and Kira. By the time the writer got around to telling us what was up with them, I was so annoyed with this book I couldn't rekindle interest in the narrative. **SIGH!**
I just read "Fearful Symmetry" for the first time last week -- I saved it until TSK was about to come out. That was probably a mistake -- perhaps my complaints are based on reading the two books back to back. I kept coming across whole chapters in TSK that seem to recapitulate material I just read in FS. I wanted to scream "Get on with it!"
It might be an interesting exercise to do a mash-up of "Fearful Symmetry" and "The Soul Key," take out all the redundant stuff, put what's left in chronological order, and see how it reads. As-is, it's pretty disappointing.
