Customer Reviews

The Sydeian Coalition - a Steampunk Adventure

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'll start this review by telling you that I did not finish the book. It was so poorly written that I could not get past the first 5 "chapters".

My husband purchased this for me for Christmas, so when I opened it I was truly looking forward to reading the book, as I do love the Steampunk genre. However, when I went to read the book, I was sorely disappointed.

I understand that it's supposed to be written as "journal entries" and not formal. However, there should still be some style to this. There was none. I think the "journal entries" was just an excuse for poor grammar, terrible punctuation, and not having any sort of continuity.

Personally, I'm not even sure if this book has been edited by anyone with all the mistakes in it. For example, February 30th? February 30th has not existed since Julius Caesar in 45 BC. So making a February 30th in 1866 makes not sense. There are several other examples of poor dating in this book and like I said, I only got through the first 5 chapters. There were already several discrepancies in the "storytelling" and I hadn't truly gotten to the "meat" of the story.

I understand it's written in two perspectives, but it's as if the "writer" was playing at being a 20's reporter (not 1866) and has no idea how a captain would be logging entries into their journal. Whether it be personal, or professional. The writing is just horrid.

This is only the 2nd book I have ever not finished and I'm an avid reader. It's terrible. The only way I would recommend this book would be as an example of what NOT to do as a writer.

In 50-some years of reading thousands of books, I have never encountered anything less worthy of being committed to paper. The authors should be ashamed of themselves. Either total ignorance or lazy disregard of the conventions of punctuation, sentence structure, word meanings and the importance of proofreading hold sway from the first page. Confusedly constructed and run-on sentences obscure meaning at every turn. Poorly drawn characters are not believable in the slightest. Glaring inconsistencies in the story line, and in fact a confused plot in general, make this a DO NOT BUY selection.

The book is written in the form of journal entries that switch between the two main characters, Captain Sydeian and William Percival, along with a few other media entries like newspaper clippings. Grammar and spelling errors are peppered throughout to give it a "realistic" feel, that these are actual journals quickly penned on the spot and not too concerned about writing quality. It was interesting to see how various events were interpreted differently as the story unfolds.

The story itself contains all the essentials of steampunk: infernal devices, airships, action, adventure, and intrigue. Overall, a very satisfying steampunk tale.