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A review by ruzgofdi
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
3.0
An interesting story, brought down a bit by style choices.
There is a secret agency in England. It's mission is to protect the nation from various supernatural baddies that get up to causing trouble every now and then. They are able to do this because they recruit... mutants? Inhumans? It's not really clear exactly how exactly some humans seem to develop special powers, or why they aren't considered a threat like the standard ghosts and witches and the like seem to be. It's not that important. What is important is that one of the higher ranking super powered individuals in the organization has been given warning that she will lose her memory soon, and she has left large amounts of information behind so that her amnesia suffering future self will be able to try and figure out what happened.
And that's where the reader picks up the story. Our main character is standing around in the aftermath of a fight, with no clue as to who she is, and a letter in her pocket giving her instructions on what to do. We follower her as she learns about her past, attempts to resume the life she was leading, tries to figure out what happened to her, and has to deal with new crisis at work. All while occasionally having us pause to get a background info dump from her previous self.
It's those info dumps where I get a bit of a problem. They're well done, or at least as well done as the rest of the story. It's just that there were times when they were over done. It seemed like the author tossed an info dump in after every cliffhanger ending to a chapter as a cheap way to extend the drama. Our hero walks into a dangerous situation. Lets take a minute to describe an event that occurred in a nearby town a couple years back. Back to the dangerous situation, which has somehow gotten worse, and could potentially kill our hero if what she's about to try doesn't work. Now lets tell you about the time we tried to wake up a dragon. I liked the history bits, but come on. Don't break the flow of your story every other chapter for stuff that may not be important to what's going on.
That and the ending seemed a bit rushed in some aspects. At least given what has happened in the rest of the book. One or two sentences to explain that a big shift is coming to the setting seems a little light. I know there is another book in the series coming, and I hope that deals with the change. Because if everything is done off page between the two, I'm afraid we'll just be getting more cliffhanger extenders for the next one.
There is a secret agency in England. It's mission is to protect the nation from various supernatural baddies that get up to causing trouble every now and then. They are able to do this because they recruit... mutants? Inhumans? It's not really clear exactly how exactly some humans seem to develop special powers, or why they aren't considered a threat like the standard ghosts and witches and the like seem to be. It's not that important. What is important is that one of the higher ranking super powered individuals in the organization has been given warning that she will lose her memory soon, and she has left large amounts of information behind so that her amnesia suffering future self will be able to try and figure out what happened.
And that's where the reader picks up the story. Our main character is standing around in the aftermath of a fight, with no clue as to who she is, and a letter in her pocket giving her instructions on what to do. We follower her as she learns about her past, attempts to resume the life she was leading, tries to figure out what happened to her, and has to deal with new crisis at work. All while occasionally having us pause to get a background info dump from her previous self.
It's those info dumps where I get a bit of a problem. They're well done, or at least as well done as the rest of the story. It's just that there were times when they were over done. It seemed like the author tossed an info dump in after every cliffhanger ending to a chapter as a cheap way to extend the drama. Our hero walks into a dangerous situation. Lets take a minute to describe an event that occurred in a nearby town a couple years back. Back to the dangerous situation, which has somehow gotten worse, and could potentially kill our hero if what she's about to try doesn't work. Now lets tell you about the time we tried to wake up a dragon. I liked the history bits, but come on. Don't break the flow of your story every other chapter for stuff that may not be important to what's going on.
That and the ending seemed a bit rushed in some aspects. At least given what has happened in the rest of the book. One or two sentences to explain that a big shift is coming to the setting seems a little light. I know there is another book in the series coming, and I hope that deals with the change. Because if everything is done off page between the two, I'm afraid we'll just be getting more cliffhanger extenders for the next one.