Review: The Iron Wyrm Affair

Originally published at Sherry D. Ramsey. You can comment here or there.

The Iron Wyrm Affair by Lilith Saintcrow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, I have to say, I loved this book! It pulled me in quickly and kept me reading voraciously until the end. Unique characters, a fully-developed steampunk world, and a complex plot–what’s not to love?

So, why only four stars? It’s really a 4.5 for me. The only minor complaints I had: there’s a lot thrown at the reader at the outset, and you really have to work a bit to keep up with everything that’s going on and to make sense of the world and the magic system. I didn’t find it a problem, but (my editor persona coming to the fore) some readers would make heavy work of it. Also, after a while I found the many internalizations of the main characters a bit wearying–just a little overdone. To be fair, the characters have a lot of secrets that they really can’t talk about but that are integral to understanding them, so the author does need to find some device to let the reader in. It just got distracting by the end.

However, do not let these editorial nit-picks steer you away from this marvelous book! My delight in it was dampened only by the realization that I have to wait a bit yet for the next Bannon and Clare adventure.



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