Benoit Chartier

This was an indiefab finalist, but the truth is that I'm having a hard time knowing what to say about it. Chartier's world-building here is impressive and complete, but the novel as a whole felt something less than complete--as if the story-telling (as opposed to the world-building) was a bit rushed, just pulled together as a mechanism for exploring the universe and ideas. From the beginning, I had a hard time engaging with the characters or feeling them to be more than superficial, and as things went on, it seemed like the points where conflict was at its highest were just rushed through. By the time I was catching up to the story and the emotion, it was already moving on.

All told, I just felt as if it was rushed, and lacking depth of character, though the ideas were there. It just needed to be slowed down--truth be told, this probably could have been a full series and been more engaging, as opposed to a single, relatively short book.

I'd read more from the author if it weren't self-published, but I can't help feeling that this would have benefited from more time and development, prior to publication.… (meer)