Sarah's Library

I received a free Adobe Digital Editions copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley (yay!! my first Netgalley review), this has not compromised my ability to write an honest and critical review of the book.

2/10 - So far, I've only read the prologue (set in 2125) and 4 pages describing the world of New York, 2088.  Dragon's description of the world, the advanced technologies (more interactive versions of what we have now, mostly), the fashion and the state of religion in America is fantastic.  I can see technology similar to what he describes actually being used in the not too distant future, although I'm not sure about the likelihood of the appearance of a group of people who dress in the streaker style, which involves perpetually wearing nothing but sandals.  So far free from the grammar, spelling and general bad writing that plagues ebooks these days.  I have high hopes for Thy Kingdom Fall.  To be continued...

Dragon uses slightly strange, quite stilted language; for example "President Kanien will be impeached.  It's a certainty," another man says; he is tall and fat. and "Their crusades and inquisitions - we must have a safe and completely secular America."  I don't mind the writing style, but it's definitely different from what I'm used to reading.  Also, who spells out etcetera?  No one.  I haven't seen it spelled in any way other than etc since it was part of a spelling test in primary school.  Every time I read it, it breaks my flow as it's so unusual to see it spelled out completely. This final grammar problem might not actually be a problem, it might just be me, but it seems to read strangely, so if anyone better at grammar than me knows which is right, please make a comment - '"Our enemies love wiping people out - Western Europe by the Muslims, New Tibet by the CHINs," Wilson says almost under his breath, then forcibly...'.  Now, as I said, please tell me if I'm wrong, but I think it should be Wilson said almost under his breath.... The present tense in that context just sounds wrong in my head.  To be continued...

Ok, I was thoroughly enjoying this until we got to the chapter called 'I could kiss Arafat on the mouth' where Dragon starts preaching to us about religiosity and some other subjects that didn't really sink in.  I nodded off a number of times while reading that chapter, so it's not like I made a huge effort to fully understand what he was talking about.  I'm also unsure exactly how that whole chapter helps the story along, I would suggest cutting that 'excerpt of a memo' down to a page or less - going into such detail was unnecessary (once I saw the table I stopped reading altogether and skipped to the start of the next chapter).  I mean we've got a bit of a murder mystery as to who killed Lucifer Mestopheles and why, and we've got a sort of political thriller with the warring religious factions of the Jew-Christians and the Pagans fighting a civil war over the Jew-Christians' refusal to be registered as such (kind of like the Star of David the Nazis forced Jews to wear during WWII).  That's what makes the story interesting, fast-paced (for the most part) and something that I'm looking forward to continuing tomorrow, not the quasi-religious instruction lesson embedded (not very surreptitiously) in the story.  Kind of reminds me of those stories you are read as a kid (or, at least I was) that have a message - whether religious, safety or nutrition - it's not really necessary to put a message in a book for adults.  Until that last chapter I would have disagreed with the other reviewers commenting that this is religious fiction, I didn't get any religious undertones until I read 'I could kiss Arafat on the mouth' and then suddenly all the other religiousness jumped out at me.  If I was living in Dragon's world I would definitely be classed as a Pagan, so religious messages, at the best of times, go over my head, and at the worst of times make me laugh.  To be continued...

4/10 - I'm not sure why the great chapters that follow Logan or the religious groups need to be mixed in with strange, mostly unecessary treatises on 'America's critical vulnerabilities' or 'demographical sociology and communications'.  These chapters, which Dragon has called 'excerpts of memos' from various important people in the fictional-future government of 2089, could be condensed down into a few paragraphs to explain the state of America's 'whatever'.  The story is interesting and reasonably exciting and that's what I want to be reading, not semi-nonfictional 'memos', theses and who knows what else.  This is a fictional book set in a fictional future, it's not a political history book looking back at what went wrong.  If I'd wanted to read a sermon on America's failings then I would have chosen another book, but if I ignore the preaching I'm really enjoying the story.  To be continued...

SPOILER ALERT
18/10 - I liked the introduction of Kristiana, but I'm sad to see Logan go.  With him dead who's going to write the expose on who murdered Lucifer Mestopheles?  The amount of research Dragon must have done in preparation of writing this book is mind-boggling (either that or it's all completely made-up and I commend Dragon on the depths of his imagination).  I'm still having problems with the structure of some of Dragon's sentences, for example: "The smart tek sensors molded the rest of it to the body along the spine, along the humerus to forearm radial of the arms, and along the gluteus maximus and femur to fibula radial of the outside legs."  As far as I can tell (as a medical transcriptionist) this sentence is the most complicated way of saying something quite simple.  I think what he's trying to say is that the exo-suit (future technology that encases your arms, legs and spine in an exo-skeleton that aids in mobility and strength) molds to the arms and legs down to the ankles and wrists.  Why the technical terms for one of the bones in the arm, one of the bones in the leg and one of the muscles in the butt needs to be used instead of simply saying arm, leg, butt, I don't know.  Over complicating your writing doesn't make you sound smarter, it just makes the reader think you're trying too hard to impress us and it also gave me the impression that your writing is less accessible to those readers who are lacking in medical degrees or books on anatomy.  Not the best impression to give any reader who's going to pass their opinion on to other potential readers.

25/10 - I'm liking Kristiana more and more as I read and I can definitely see her becoming a major character going into the next book and a major force in the Christian/Amish faither movement.

It's interesting how Dragon has taken many of today's issues, which the majority of people are fighting for, and given them to us in this future, and then told us "But, be careful what you wish for, you might get it" by making these victories into our worst nightmares.  We've got marriage equality, but as a result we've got people marrying their dogs and inanimate objects.  We've got freedom from religious hatred, but in order to achieve that all religion has been outlawed and the fight against religion in all forms has become worse than the religious hatred and violence that we're experiencing now - it's almost unfair, but also horribly believable.  To be continued...

3/10 - Finally finished this complicated, dystopian thriller set in a religion-free America nearly 100 years from now.  With a little editing on the awkward phrasing, missing/repetitive words and occasional passage of forced sounding dialogue this could be a 5 star book.  This is one of the only ebooks I've read that I would pay money for a real version and re-read it.  I really hope I get the chance to read more of this series, I especially want to read more about the scene from the prologue set in 2125, the 'sky ships' attacking had me hooked on Thy Kingdom Fall before I'd really started reading the main story.  Thanks again NetGalley.