Book Review: "Technomancer: Unspeakable Things #1" by B.V. Larson

Technomancer: Unspeakable Things #1 review
Author: B.V. Larson
3 out of 5 stars

Upon reconsideration of my review, I have decided I was being overly harsh with my assessment and am re-rating this as 3 stars. See end of "my thoughts" for reasoning.

Book Info: Genre: Supernatural Thriller Reading Level: Adult Book available 7/24/12

Disclosure: I received a free paperback ARC Galley from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: Long thought of as a haven for gambling, gangsters and sultry vice, the City in the Desert has drawn strangers to it over time.

Strangers to our world, to our very existence. Quentin Draith specializes in investigating the impossible. Riding with a witness while he questions him, the driver's body suddenly fills with sand. The gut, the lungs and the throat expand with dry, sifting grains from the desert floor. The driver tries to tell Draith how his own impossible murder was accomplished, but they crash first. Draith awakens in a private sanatorium which he isn’t allowed to leave. Alone, he must find out what is happening – and why it revolves around him.

My Thoughts: This book is described as being somewhere between the Dresden Files (by Jim Butcher if you’ve been living in a cave) and the Vampire for Hire series by J.R. Rains. I have some of the latter but haven’t read them; however, I have read most of the Dresden files and absolutely loved them, so have had high hopes for this book.

It certainly started off with a bang. Waking up in a hospital room with no memory is somewhat common, but it’s obvious early on that there is something... different about this world. He has no one to help him, no one he can trust, no friends, no family to turn to, and there were very strange things happening around him. To top it off the police seem to be after him, blaming him for a murder or murders. Soon he finds that there are certain objects in his world that confer power to the holder, and he seems to be a magnet not only for trouble, but for the objects as well. The ideas were interesting enough, I guess, but it soon drug to a shuddering, juttering halt. What was the problem? The characters - I just didn’t care what happened to any of them.

Now perhaps it is unfair to compare it to something like Harry Dresden, but they started it, and as far as comparisons to Harry Dresden go, I simply do not see that. There is a sort of common smirking wink behind some of what they each say in their respective books, but Quentin doesn’t have the same sort of charm as Harry. Quentin is always thinking, but not about anything particularly interesting. Maybe it was because he had amnesia, but I doubt it, since none of the characters had much life in them - I just couldn’t feel connected, and as a result, I kept finding things to do to take me away from the book. I even started working on my editing projects early this week rather than finish this book, like I would normally do. I spent two days essentially sleeping. In other words, I just wasn’t all that interested in this book and I guess it shows. I finally gave up and flung it across the room in a fit of pique. However... The writing, other than the characterization, is very good, and the idea is interesting, if not necessarily conceived as well as it could be.

Now, if you find the idea of a world in which objects help the holders wield a type of magic, and you don’t have to worry about getting attached to the characters, I guess you might like this book, but I decided that life is too short to keep trying to slog through this book, and did not finish it. Nonetheless, I am giving it three stars, to bow to the fact that it is pretty well-written.