My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Soundings Edge by Adrian Westbrooke DNF 7%
This is the first book in a six book series (so far). I found it to be boring. This not to say that it was poorly written. Westbrooke had done his research and includes a lot of description of the time and place the story is set; in the 1770's. And he places his hero on a ship captained by Captain Cook, during which I believe was his second voyage of exploration to the Pacific. But three chapters into it, it simply hadn't hooked me. There was a lot of telling, if you like that sort of thing. By the time I called it a day, we had seen our hero grow up, spend two years at a naval academy, and cross the pacific to Australia, i.e. a lot of stuff, without much depth. All of which necessitated a lot of telling, with very little personality or characters.
It is perhaps unfair to compare every sea story, at least of this period, to Patrick O'Brian, but I do. He is the gold standard, in my opinion, for several reasons. The first is that he brings the age he is writing about onto the page in the way he writes. He uses just enough historic words and usages to take the reader back in time, without having to stumble over lots of unfamiliar words and obscure items. There is more to bring a historical period to life than writing a description of scenes. Speech and words should suggest the period as well, without compromising readability. And secondly, for my taste, the story has to feature people first and foremost. We have to see and experience the world through the characters' eyes, not the writer's. In this case, it was just Westbrooke hurrying us along to tell his story, and perhaps to educate us. I assume we would eventually reach a point where our main character plays a more active and important role in the story, so, if I had a little more patience, the characters would likely have unfolded. I mean, with six books, they must have unfolded and grown richer. Or so you would think. But even so, I fear what would not have changed is the writer's style, and style to me is all important. HIs style simply did not click with me.
At the time of writing this piece, it is in the #7000's best selling books on Amazon, with just over 1000 ratings with a 4.7 star rating, so it is a very popular and well regarded book, especially for such a niche category. So, as always, read my preferences above and take my review with those expectations in mind.
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