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book: Wormhole Pirates On Orbis 3
May. 3rd, 2011 11:20 amI finished the third Softwire book, Wormhole Pirates On Orbis 3 by PJ Haaaaaaaaaarsma. *pauses to look that spelling up* Haarsma.
The first book in the series, Virus On Orbis 1, was a free k-book. I enjoyed it thoroughly though I felt it would have been a better book if it hadn't been as short as it was because there were a lot of interesting characters we could have done more than glance at if there'd been time. But the plot was great. The conflicts were well developed and although they felt sprung on us, we were seeing from the perspective of the 11 year old main character and those kinds of conflicts are sudden because no one tells children enough for them to extrapolate, even if they'd learned how already. It was extremely well done to pull us along when we weren't ready and hold us back when we wanted to skip over parts. If it was an intentional technique, then the author is extremely talented.
I borrowed the second book from the library. It was really hard to follow. It had the same kind of convoluted plotting but by now the main character is 13, and has had some shitty life experience so we'd expect him to not be quite so oblivious. In fact, the plot depends upon him having enough life skills to get to the layer right under the surface, but the reader isn't shown that information and it looks like Deus ex Machina intuition. I'm sure there's a fine line between showing the reader so much that they want to scream at the characters for being fuckwittedly stupid (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, can you hear me?) and just seeing the solution at the end of a 2000 page mystery novel. Again we didn't get to see much of the interesting characters we've seen glimpses of.
The third book though really shows that there is a failure in the authorial technique. The main character hasn't matured at all. His life experience hasn't seemingly taught him anything about the underlying motivations people have or that he needs to be aware of subsurface coercion. If this took place 2 weeks or a month after the first book, sure, I can see this. But supposedly it's 2 years later. A 15 year old probably should be able to accept a gift horse without making it bite him so he can check its teeth. It might have helped if someone explained the hidden secret stuff so he didn't have to circumvent the adults trying to protect him. But honestly, he hasn't put forth any effort to either explain his thinking (leaving me with the impression that he doesn't actually do any) or have the author show us what information he is reacting to. The plot was absolutely ludicrous because it was so much of a curveball.
The main character has these massive super powers that should give him dominion over just about anything he wants to survey and he doesn't even fix the obvious problem that he's a slave even when given the best opportunities to do so. Then we find out that his massive super powers only work [sometimes] ( spoiler ). Making his choices not to improve his base situation even stupider.
There is a fourth book, but I find that I really don't care. Which is good because the library can't find their copy.
The first book in the series, Virus On Orbis 1, was a free k-book. I enjoyed it thoroughly though I felt it would have been a better book if it hadn't been as short as it was because there were a lot of interesting characters we could have done more than glance at if there'd been time. But the plot was great. The conflicts were well developed and although they felt sprung on us, we were seeing from the perspective of the 11 year old main character and those kinds of conflicts are sudden because no one tells children enough for them to extrapolate, even if they'd learned how already. It was extremely well done to pull us along when we weren't ready and hold us back when we wanted to skip over parts. If it was an intentional technique, then the author is extremely talented.
I borrowed the second book from the library. It was really hard to follow. It had the same kind of convoluted plotting but by now the main character is 13, and has had some shitty life experience so we'd expect him to not be quite so oblivious. In fact, the plot depends upon him having enough life skills to get to the layer right under the surface, but the reader isn't shown that information and it looks like Deus ex Machina intuition. I'm sure there's a fine line between showing the reader so much that they want to scream at the characters for being fuckwittedly stupid (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, can you hear me?) and just seeing the solution at the end of a 2000 page mystery novel. Again we didn't get to see much of the interesting characters we've seen glimpses of.
The third book though really shows that there is a failure in the authorial technique. The main character hasn't matured at all. His life experience hasn't seemingly taught him anything about the underlying motivations people have or that he needs to be aware of subsurface coercion. If this took place 2 weeks or a month after the first book, sure, I can see this. But supposedly it's 2 years later. A 15 year old probably should be able to accept a gift horse without making it bite him so he can check its teeth. It might have helped if someone explained the hidden secret stuff so he didn't have to circumvent the adults trying to protect him. But honestly, he hasn't put forth any effort to either explain his thinking (leaving me with the impression that he doesn't actually do any) or have the author show us what information he is reacting to. The plot was absolutely ludicrous because it was so much of a curveball.
The main character has these massive super powers that should give him dominion over just about anything he wants to survey and he doesn't even fix the obvious problem that he's a slave even when given the best opportunities to do so. Then we find out that his massive super powers only work [sometimes] ( spoiler ). Making his choices not to improve his base situation even stupider.
There is a fourth book, but I find that I really don't care. Which is good because the library can't find their copy.
