A review by mjporterauthor
The Malice by Peter Newman

First things first, I've not read the Vagrant, but having received a free EArc of The Seven (Book 3) I dived right into it and then realised that I really should read, at least, the previous book.

The Malice starts very strongly - the world created feels both relatable and also very strange. This sums up much of the novel. The main characters of Vesper, and the Kid, are introduced very quickly and immediately feel like realistic characters. Yet the author's writing style is spare, almost to distraction, substituting words that sound like what they describe as opposed to describing them, for instance a WarMech. For me this meant that I was constantly grasping at even the smallest amount of description, which was strange because I often find author's engaging in too much description and it annoys me, this was the complete opposite.

For all that, the world is richly imagined, in all its strangeness and it is very strange, and this makes it, at times, quite a difficult read, and that's why it's taken me a month to read because I just had to take a break half way through because the 'weirdness' and the writing style was giving me something of a headache.

For all that, the book is worthy of perseverance and I'm looking forward to reading The Seven.

All in all, not an easy read, but quite an intriguing one.