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A review by readundancies
Isolate by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 20%.
Fair warning, this review may be considered biased because I paid full pop for this hardcover at around $40.00 with tax and I am still salty about it considering this just became a DNF.
No big deal.
At page 15 of this story I noticed that our MC, Dekkard, wondered about things a lot. Many things. Many boring things. And we the readers are privy to it all, which is great and an interesting choice considering he can’t be read emotionally whatsoever, but also why did it have to be so explicitly stated and so frequently?
It was also oh so very slow paced. The slowest of paces. This may be the slowest paced book I’ve tried to read in a very long time. And it feels like a strange combination of slice of life alongside political thriller and those are two genres that I’m not sure ever needed to be combined.
From a writing style perspective, there was a lot of the mundane in routine being focussed on and it was not particularly interesting despite being set in a gas lamp world. I think it’s because the main plot was so politically motivated that everything else, especially with how repetitive the mundane all was, acts as a means to bog down what little plot was actually occurring. It was almost a constant bombardment of minutaie and considering this novel is almost 600 pages long, a lot of it could’ve been cut. Truth talk? I’m not sure the plot warranted the tedious length of the story and I’m fairly confident that it wasn’t captivating enough to do so either.
The characterization was strange for lack of a better word. It was a lot of other people telling me as the reader what Dekkard was like despite me reading his thoughts and seeing his mannerisms. And being so privy to his life, I feel like I should’ve gotten more of a sense of who he was, but at no point did that occur. It was much the same of all the other characters; the few things that happen in terms of plot didn’t reveal much of the people involved. Honestly, it kinda gave me aliens-inhabiting-the-bodies-of-humans-and-trying-and-failing-to-impersonate-them vibes and it’s not something that really worked for me because that’s not actually what was happening here. Like at all. We’re not even in the same genre.
And then I didn’t find the writing particularly compelling. The same went for the characters. The worldbuilding seemed to be more complex than I needed it to be in terms of the politics and the economy and yet also was not explored enough in terms of culture and setting and surroundings. There was just something analytic to the tone of this work. And as this is my first foray into this author’s work, I’m not sure if this is just a part of his nature (I think it may be) but I’m pretty sure that it’s not for me.
That, coupled with the romance which I was not interested in leaves us with a plot that is buried underneath mountains of politicking and it never felt natural or necessary to include IMHO.
And so yeah, ditching this and I won’t apologize, not even to it’s gorgeous cover/dust jacket.
No big deal.
At page 15 of this story I noticed that our MC, Dekkard, wondered about things a lot. Many things. Many boring things. And we the readers are privy to it all, which is great and an interesting choice considering he can’t be read emotionally whatsoever, but also why did it have to be so explicitly stated and so frequently?
It was also oh so very slow paced. The slowest of paces. This may be the slowest paced book I’ve tried to read in a very long time. And it feels like a strange combination of slice of life alongside political thriller and those are two genres that I’m not sure ever needed to be combined.
From a writing style perspective, there was a lot of the mundane in routine being focussed on and it was not particularly interesting despite being set in a gas lamp world. I think it’s because the main plot was so politically motivated that everything else, especially with how repetitive the mundane all was, acts as a means to bog down what little plot was actually occurring. It was almost a constant bombardment of minutaie and considering this novel is almost 600 pages long, a lot of it could’ve been cut. Truth talk? I’m not sure the plot warranted the tedious length of the story and I’m fairly confident that it wasn’t captivating enough to do so either.
The characterization was strange for lack of a better word. It was a lot of other people telling me as the reader what Dekkard was like despite me reading his thoughts and seeing his mannerisms. And being so privy to his life, I feel like I should’ve gotten more of a sense of who he was, but at no point did that occur. It was much the same of all the other characters; the few things that happen in terms of plot didn’t reveal much of the people involved. Honestly, it kinda gave me aliens-inhabiting-the-bodies-of-humans-and-trying-and-failing-to-impersonate-them vibes and it’s not something that really worked for me because that’s not actually what was happening here. Like at all. We’re not even in the same genre.
And then I didn’t find the writing particularly compelling. The same went for the characters. The worldbuilding seemed to be more complex than I needed it to be in terms of the politics and the economy and yet also was not explored enough in terms of culture and setting and surroundings. There was just something analytic to the tone of this work. And as this is my first foray into this author’s work, I’m not sure if this is just a part of his nature (I think it may be) but I’m pretty sure that it’s not for me.
That, coupled with the romance which I was not interested in leaves us with a plot that is buried underneath mountains of politicking and it never felt natural or necessary to include IMHO.
And so yeah, ditching this and I won’t apologize, not even to it’s gorgeous cover/dust jacket.