This was a sci-fi book written about another world where just about every dispute is settled with fists and brute force – in a circle, mano a mano.
What I look for in a good science fiction book is deep world building, gritty characters, and some kind of subtle message running through it as a deep undercurrent. This book started with promise and described a very compelling world. Most of the beginning occurs on a mysterious island and inside deep caves that house an underclass of people who are struggling to get by. The culture of combat is deeply seated in this society, and this book gets right to it.
Unfortunately, things got worse from there. The narrative really hits you over the head with issues of inequality and honor, classism and work ethic. The characters are mostly black and white – either with a heart of gold or one-dimensionally evil. Unfortunately I managed to sniff out what the climax of the book would be while reading the first few chapters.
Most of the writing centers around martial arts, and the writer is obviously very well versed in this. I think people (especially young people) that are interested in mixed martial arts or similar sports would get more out of this book than I did.
What really threw me off was a sudden switch in the middle of the book to a sort of Harry Potter situation – just change Hogwarts to the Citadel and the sorting hat to the Trials. It didn’t seem original (one of the leaders of the Citadel was cribbed right out of Game of Thrones), and if there is one thing I hope to get out of science fiction is a new way of thinking about things.
So maybe my expectations were too high, but this book didn’t really do it for me. I don’t think I’ll bother moving on to the next book in the series.
Switching back to non-fiction, I’ve started to read The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell.
