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It's Complicated

I just committed 14 days to 2420 pages of the five-book Psion Series.

The series has 2564 five-star reviews on Goodreads, and about as many four-star reviews.  There are hardly any one or two starred reviews.

Everyone who read these books loved them.  So, obviously, I loved them too.

Obviously. 

Right?

Sigh.

It's complicated.

Here's what I liked.

I wonder when I'll get bored of stories about kids with unique talents being discovered and shipped off to special kid school so they can learn to use their talent to save the world?  Never, I suspect.

What about stories about underdogs overthrowing oppressive governments?  Doesn’t get old.

How about stories about unlikely heroes?  Troubled, imperfect good guys who have to overcome their personal demons before they can save the ones they love?  Sacrificing yourself for your friends? Young love?  Please—give me more! More, more, more!

The Psion Series has it all.  No offensive language or sex either.

I like it.

Here's what's complicated:

First, the writing is unpolished. I’m trying to be polite—I have tremendous respect for anyone that writes, so I hate calling out the writing. But I do call it as I see it.  The writing improves as the series goes on, but those first three books were really hard to get through. Even by the end though, it reads more like a middle-grade book than anything.  Which actually isn’t really that much of an issue…

…except for the other complication.

The Psion series sees an Ender and raises a Rambo. These kids die violently. And kill violently. Really, really violently.

For all of the chaste love and elementary-school expletives, there is an exponential elevation of violence.  I’m talking blood and guts, full descriptions, gore, smells, feels, emotions, no holding back. It’s the weirdest thing.  It’s a middle-grade story with grown-up violence.

What do I do with that?

I WANT to recommend The Psion Series—the story is a lot of fun and I cared about the characters.

I can’t recommend it to my kids because of the strong, bloody, and frequent violence—even though the writing, language, and relationships are perfectly on their level.

I can’t recommend it to my adult friends because the juvenile writing is lame. To be clear, I’m not talking about lack of swearing or sex as juvenile.  I’m talking about the actual writing.  It was just plain hard to read.

You see?

It’s complicated.

So, I’ll just do my job. I liked The Psion Series, but I didn’t like the writing.  I liked the clean language and chaste love, but didn’t like the violence.

If you can look past the complicated and appreciate the good, I think you’ll find a series worth investing in.  If you’re going to get hung up on complicated, you’d better not waste your time.

Happy reading!

This is going to be a review for the whole series up to this point.

I love these books. So much so that I really don't know how to write a review for them so if I end up not making sense, I apologize in advanced xD Even though I've given each book no more than 4 stars with mostly 3s going around, I actually love the whole package.

These books aren't perfect by any means, but they are very enjoyable (I still I thought they were enjoyable). I've have had this same thing happened with another series that's ended up as one of my favorites. Individually the books could use some more sprucing up but alltogether? They are just awesome.

If you want to know what to expect from this series, plot wise, then think something like the Insignia trilogy by S.J. Kincaid. If you like those type of books then I urge you to read these.

My favorite book so far out of the 4 has been Psion Delta. These books never lack action. There is barely any downtime for our MC, Sammy. He just goes from one trouble to the next and I've wanted him to have a break because he has just suffered so much throughout his very short life.

What draws me to these books isn't just the action, it's the way the author manages to write about these very young kids in these very adult type of situations. You never truly forget that these are kids you are reading about even though they go through training to become killers, they still manage to keep that innocence, that spark that still makes them kids. Sammy, has had to grow up much more quickly than the rest because of his background and experiences. I loved that he could be both mature when he had to be, but also act like the kid he was in personal matters.

There was a lot of morality, existential, and religious questions through the books. The first two are dealt more in the first 3 books with the religious bit weaving through all 4 of them and having more screen time in the fourth, which is probably why the fourth book is my least favorite of the three. It was too close preaching at times for comfort. On the other hand I can see why it was needed and it did work for the most part. I specially enjoyed how Sammy had to come to terms with what he was doing, the killings, the survivor's guilt, and the torture and the responsibility of who he was, and what everyone expected of him.

In short, what I'm saying is. Give these books a try. I loved them and can't wait till the last one. So much happened at the end in Psion Alpha, can't wait to see how everything is resolved.