I think I bought this book at Continuum 2024. I’ve not written a note to remind me, I’m regretting this lack of action on my part. I did google the author before putting fingers to keyboard and I feel I would remember his face as he’s rather distinctive. But the fact that I can’t be sure where I bought this makes me question these things right now.
From the blurb it looks promising. I’ve copied it from Dragyn Jane’s website because I’m lazy.
The first novel of this series, Berserker, tells the story of Malik, a young man set on the path for vengeance, until he finds new bonds within the Berserker’s brotherhood, throwing everything he thought he wanted into question.
Really promising, I thought. And there is still promise in this book. I know it’s been edited and probably proofread, but I found some glaring errors. Maybe they’re only glaring to me and someone less judgemental might not notice them.
I’ve got a few gripes which I’m going to work through without notes. I didn’t take the time to pull myself out of the book enough to write any of this down.
Actual typos. Very few, my memory is telling me only two or three. I’ve actually seen more typos in books recently published by big traditional publishing houses. Things such as an extra word or the wrong letter. Little things. Unless I’m including the lack of appropriate apostrophes as typos, there were enough to be annoying.
Then there are things I’m calling formatting errors. I’m no expert, formatting a book is not really my expertise. Yes, I’ve done a bit of formatting in a magazine, but that was a long time ago and the longest article was no more than a couple of pages. I am wondering if I have enough skills to format my own book when the time comes. Common sense tells me I don’t, but I’ll wait and see what my budget is looking like. Maybe I’ll make the same mistakes I’m complaining about.
When you’re moving from one scene to another, or there is change in the time frame, you need to let the reader know. I remember one occasion where Malik did the action, but in the next paragraph was somewhere else. There was no line breaks, or marks between the paragraphs to delineate a change in time or scenery. It was disconcerting.
The most disconcerting thing I found was where two sentences had been mashed together with an apostrophe. It happened three times. Maybe Jane thought it was something new and different to try. I don’t know. All I know is it pulled me out of the book long enough to stop me reading, but not long enough to write a note.
So, you might be wondering why I bothered to finish this book if there were so many things that annoyed me. Especially as today I handed a book back to a friend which I didn’t finish. And that’s harder to quantify. Because I definitely did finish it, I even read the About the Author and the Acknowledgements. I’m not convinced that this book is as good as it could be, but it definitely shows promise. Some of the issue is probably me, I’m not very familiar with Norse legends and that’s where this is based.
Anyway, the book starts in the industrial parts of the city of Midgard. Malik is an unprepossessing teenager who’s just been dismissed from his job, seen his mother killed and had the same person attempt to kill him. In the first couple of chapters it feels very industrial age with little modernity. But later on we’re introduced to a couple of concepts such as carbs, protein and flushable toilets. Some of these things felt incongruous.
After he recovers from his attack the only thing Malik can do is to attempt to join The Berserkers. this is really hard to do. They only take a certain number of students in a year and they train them really hard. They need to weed out those they consider dangerous. They take their roles in the security of Midgard very seriously.
There’s a lot of world building in this book. Most of the modern bits felt incongruous, as I said. There was one thing that amused me tremendously. Part of their training is to be able to go ‘berserk’ while still keeping control. However, after leaving the ‘berserk’ mode and coming back to normal exhaustion hits. They are given a concoction call R4G3. If your chemistry knowledge is any good you’ll know what this is. I’m still amused.
I loved the world building. I did like the camaradarie between Malik and some other recruits. They were the friends he needed, once he figured out how to let them in things improved.
I’m still not convinced I like Malik. Some of his friends are great people, good to have around for a bit of training, destress, or in a tight corner. I also like the teachers, but I’m not sure how old they are, they seem to have been around for a long time.
Yes, I enjoyed this book enough to finish it. There was a lot I cared about, the writing style was good, and it was good to learn a little more about Norse mythology. Will I read the next in the series? I’ve no idea. I’m assuming the writing will have improved, that can only be a good thing. But I’m an opportunistic buyer and reader of books. I buy what’s there. I rarely plan to buy specific books, and that’s why I’m not sure if I’ll buy the next book in the series.
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