Saad Hossain

The end of this book reaaaally annoyed me. For some reason I’d thought it was a standalone story. That was probably a bad assumption based on not seeing any series info associated with the book and this book having a publication date of over 6 years ago. I have no idea whether or not there will ever be any sequels, but this is not a complete story.

The premise was kind of fun. There are a couple main POV characters, but we start off with Indelbed, a young boy living in poverty with an alcoholic father. He soon learns that his life isn’t what it appears to have been. Djinn are real, and his mother was one, and his father is an emissary to the djinn. Indelbed gets imprisoned by a djinn and tries to escape. Meanwhile, his cousin and aunt, who have also just learned of the existence of the djinn, take a crash course on djinn politics.

For some reason the story really didn’t hold my attention well, even though I kept feeling like it was the sort of thing I should have enjoyed more. The writing was fine, the setting was fleshed out pretty well, I liked the characters ok, and I was interested in the story on the surface of things, I just never felt compelled to read more to find out what would happen next. It also started to go downhill for me closer to the end. I’m not convinced the main villain’s motivations made that much sense and I was very, very unhappy with the direction one of the characters took toward the end.

I was going to give this 3 stars until I read the abrupt and unsatisfying ending. That pushed it down to 2.5 stars and I was tempted to go even lower, but I’ll round up to 3 on Goodreads based on my enjoyment level for the rest of the story.… (meer)

I'm not sure what to make of this dystopian novelette, but it was lots of fun reading it.

Honestly, I don't know how to describe what goes on without detailing the book and then it will just sound absurd. Because it is. Everything in the book is absurd. Humans are absurd. Djinn are absurd. AI is absurd. Absurdity abounds.

Definitely not for everyone. Unless you like funny little books about an AI driven society colliding with the awakening of an ancient hyper-masculine djinn. Then you might like it.

WTF.… (meer)

Having finally gotten around to reading this novel, it isn't quite what I expected. Mind you, It has the wit and inventiveness that I admire Hossain for, but the conclusion is akin to a road coming to a dead end. The intention seems to be to offer the resolution of the fates of various characters in the works that follow this novel. However, if you aren't aware of those stories, you're not going to finish this book and feel satisfied. Frankly, you'd be better off reading "Cyber Mage" and Hossain's novellas before tackling this work.… (meer)