Reviews and Comments

Just barely squeezing into three stars. A very generic military science-fiction novel that seems to have no soul, nothing interesting to say and a main character with all the depth of a piece of cardboard.
The story feels like your really basic video game / late night improvised RPG scenario where everything is second-hand. There's a lot of detail but it doesn't cohere into a whole.

It's written competently enough, and the last part changes gears completely, ending the book a sequel hook more blatant than seen in ages. And yet, I find myself kind of interested to see what might happen next.

A science fiction fairy tale - two tastes that don't normally really mix, and I'm still not sure they do.

I'm giving it four stars, even though I'm really not sure I liked it that much. But the ideas and execution were good, the characters were gripping and the resolution was interesting. The book made me rather uncomfortable at times - I thought I knew where things were going, and resented it - but then they didn't. Or maybe they did? Gah. Colour me confounded, but also rather impressed.

Damien Boyd just keeps churning these out, none of them are much good, and yet I keep reading them. Well played, Mr. Boyd.

... Actually Kickback was a reasonably competent whodunnit, slightly better than the previous two books. Boyd is actually improving as a writer, and it's just the meticulously dull style and the wooden main character(s) that are keeping my ratings down. Kickback actually featured horse racing in a prominent role, which was kind of nice.

Still, Kickback feels like a first draft in need of an editor. Again. I find myself hoping that one will turn up someday.

Within an inch of getting four stars. I loved the premise, and the execution wasn't half-bad. The book was maybe a bit too nice and tidy, the main character could have leaned harder into the "street smart but uneducated" direction. A zombie story should be a bit more bloody, gory and disgusting.

Still, My Life as a White Trash Zombie was by no means bad; it was interesting enough, and it feels like the author knows what they're talking about when discussing autopsies, mortuary work and stuff. As a first book in the series, it got me interested in checking out the others.

"They had arrived just after 9.00am"
"From 4.00pm onwards"
"The interview began at 2.00pm"

What is it with these books and having to give exact times for everything?

It's another Nick Dixon detective story, with the same flaws (and, it needs to be said, strengths) as the first one. Editor badly needed, all characters sound alike, the writing would make any spreadsheet proud etc etc. The plot is still okay, and even managed to surprise me a couple of times, although at the same time I was yelling "you damn idiot" at the protagonist.

As The Crow Flies badly needed an editor's touch, or maybe an editor's hacksaw. Even though in a mystery/detective novel, style can be secondary to plot, ATCF reads way too much like a laundry list of things that happened. Fortunately, the plot is OK, and the prose was more pedestrian than actively annoying. Still, this could have been so much better.

(Also -- and this is a very slight spoiler -- there's way too little climbing! I picked this up in the hopes that there would be crazy climbing action, but we get hardly any of that past the first ten or so pages. It's a shame, because the little there is wasn't bad at all. I honestly can't wait for the caving-themed Dixon book.)