Neonjade

I haven’t read much fiction in awhile. My last years as a technical writer were spent cramming as much SGML, XML, etc., books down my gullet as I could. When I wasn’t reading books to help me with work, I read books to help me with me, because I kept going where I was while wanting out for longer than contributes to good mental health.

Genre: Fantasy

My Rating: 3.5 out of 10

My first self-selected foray back into reading for pleasure disappointed me. It could be my tastes have languished in the lapse, since all the reviews I’ve seen for this novel have been gushing approval. It could be that this novel is for a younger crowd, and I just can’t appreciate it like its intended audience. Hopefully, we’ll find out with my next try.

In reading Havemercy, I found the beginning narratives frustrating. First, they included enough occurrences of “which is to say,” “truth be told,” etc., to annoy me. Also, the four narrators constantly contradicted themselves, many times within the same paragraph. Finally, I’ve never cared for cloying sentimentality in characters and the way Royston and poor Hal go on and on with the “I’m killing myself by not being with you the way I’d like” nearly gagged me.

My husband laughed at my expense a few times while I struggled through. He kept asking me why I didn’t just put it down. I refused. This was the first new book I’d bought for fun in forever and it did have a great promise of story – dragon riders on magical metal dragons, magicians, war and intrigue – I kept hoping it might pan out.

The prose did get tighter as the book progressed, and the battle against the Ke-Han mage tower was great, but the cast and crew never stopped their decent into soap opera characterization. Only Rook, the bad ass narrator from the Dragon Corps, managed to entertain me. At least he wasn’t so soggy he dripped everywhere he went.

Overall, I would not recommend Havemercy. Would you? Let me know what you thought of it.