Wednesday, December 20, 2023

The Fractured Dark by Megan E. O'Keefe




Oooof. I soooo wanted to love this book like the first one. I had never read anything by Megan E. O’Keefe before the Blighted Stars, but I had heard good things about Velocity Weapon (and I found it on my virtual TBR pile, purchased when it was on sale ages ago). 


Everything I enjoyed about the first book seemed to be missing or muted here. No robots, very little spaceship excitement, mostly it was people talking in rooms boringly. The romance, which had a good long slow burn last time, had hit the reset button and slogged for the first half? third? of this volume. 


This book was sooooooo long. I felt like hundreds of pages could’ve been cut and not impacted the overall story, which barely progressed the plot of the semi intelligent fungus taking over everything. Furthermore, the antagonist Fletch was just too creepy and unpleasant that he didn’t really fit in this kind of book. We didn’t need a domestic violence stalker to team up with the fungus. 


Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m going to read the third book when it comes out - I don’t know if I care enough about these characters or this world to slog through another doorstop of a novel. 


Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 


No comments: