Deathweave
While reading some new books, I often have the thought, "this is pretty good, I wonder why it isn't more famous." I had that thought with the book by J.F. Rivkin, and I had it with the book I just finished, Deathweave, by Cary Osborne. But in both cases, even though the book had something strong going for it, it also had some things going against it.
Deathweave is a futuristic space opera. The main character is Arden Grenfell of the planet Glory, who is the bodyguard to Princess Jessa of Glory. Jessa is the daughter of the emperor and a concubine, and is not the heir to the throne -- her half-brother is. Her mother is a seeress who can foretell the future using a thread called "lifeweave," which has a central importance in the book. Lifeweave is a beautiful, shimmering rainbow-colored substance that, while being woven by hand into cloth, can allow the weaver to go into a trance. While there, she has a vision and can learn the future, and when she wakes up, she finds she has woven a picture that will help her figure out the future.
There are two problems with lifeweave: one, only some people have the ability to use it (like Force-sensitives in Star Wars.) Two, lifeweave is addictive. The emperor's concubine has long been addicted to it and spent every waking minute weaving, and soon became old and blind.
In the very beginning of the novel, Princess Jessa has decided to leave Glory and her birthright behind and make her own future. She offers to take Arden with her, but Arden chooses to stay. Arden also has a huge, huge feeling of "duty" and knows that allowing the princess to leave is treason. So while she does allow the princess to leave, she elects to stay behind and take the punishment. She is given the death sentence, but waits in prison for six years instead.
In the first chapter, after six years as a prisoner, she is released on the condition that she track down Jessa -- no one knows where she is now -- and bring her back because her mother is now dying and, for one thing, someone is needed to continue her job as seeress. It's unknown if Jessa has the ability to use lifeweave, but she might have inherited it and it is considered her duty to take her mother's place. So Arden is free to go. She is later assaulted by assassins, but fights them off and sends them away. She goes on to a monastery, where we learn more of her backstory. She was raised in the monastery after her father died, so she thinks of the monks as her family. They had trained her in martial arts and she also found that she has the ability to use lifeweave. After prison, she continues training at the monastery and then uses lifeweave in order to find out where Jessa is hiding.
Meanwhile, we learn that Jessa is an astronavigator as part of the crew of a scavenger ship.
This is enough backstory for now. Wish I knew how to say it all in fewer words.
The bad: too many characters, that is, too many weird names to keep track of. Some are better known "Earth" names (Jackson Turner), and some are weird names, but it took me too long to learn them all. The characters are also pretty difficult to distinguish, especially the various mercenaries and scavenger crew. All of them, to a lesser extent Arden but even her, need to be more rounded, shown more sides.
Arden is not the best female character I've read about. She approaches relationships with too much of a casual attitude (you'll see) and it seems that she should be more people-smart if she is a bodyguard. As it is, she is a good fighter but too naive in other respects.
She might have learned some lessons by the end, but it's hard to tell. She might be more cautious, but I'm not sure yet if she takes relationships with people more seriously or if she takes her dutiful feelings down a notch. She could use it.
The book isn't well edited. There are too many times when the rule "show, don't say" is broken. Some things are stated just too obviously. For example, the emperor is sexist. This is stated in too many obvious words:
"Damn that woman. Damn all women. Lyona dying at the worst possible time. Jessa leaving without any regard for her family or her people. This guardswoman refusing to cooperate. Even the empress for not giving him other sons! At least she had been a cooperative and submissive woman in every other way.
It was time to teach these independent-thinking women a lesson."
The good?: yes, there were good stuff. Don't read this for the characters, but read it for the space opera and the ease. There were a few twists in the story, and the plot is "shaky" and needs editing, but otherwise it was a straightforward story and easy to go through. Things really picked up after the first half, though there were some new characters introduced suddenly and I had to get through that. But there was good enough tension through the story to keep me going, and it was worth that.
Deathweave has a sequel called Darkloom, which I will go on to read (note: actually, I just finished and will review that next). I don't mind finding out if Arden has grown up.
A note on the cover art: I doubt that Arden's costume is that revealing; she usually just wore jumpsuits, not some long flowing cloak thing. And the book didn't describe her too closely. Otherwise, it's pretty accurate.
Deathweave is a futuristic space opera. The main character is Arden Grenfell of the planet Glory, who is the bodyguard to Princess Jessa of Glory. Jessa is the daughter of the emperor and a concubine, and is not the heir to the throne -- her half-brother is. Her mother is a seeress who can foretell the future using a thread called "lifeweave," which has a central importance in the book. Lifeweave is a beautiful, shimmering rainbow-colored substance that, while being woven by hand into cloth, can allow the weaver to go into a trance. While there, she has a vision and can learn the future, and when she wakes up, she finds she has woven a picture that will help her figure out the future.
There are two problems with lifeweave: one, only some people have the ability to use it (like Force-sensitives in Star Wars.) Two, lifeweave is addictive. The emperor's concubine has long been addicted to it and spent every waking minute weaving, and soon became old and blind.
In the very beginning of the novel, Princess Jessa has decided to leave Glory and her birthright behind and make her own future. She offers to take Arden with her, but Arden chooses to stay. Arden also has a huge, huge feeling of "duty" and knows that allowing the princess to leave is treason. So while she does allow the princess to leave, she elects to stay behind and take the punishment. She is given the death sentence, but waits in prison for six years instead.
In the first chapter, after six years as a prisoner, she is released on the condition that she track down Jessa -- no one knows where she is now -- and bring her back because her mother is now dying and, for one thing, someone is needed to continue her job as seeress. It's unknown if Jessa has the ability to use lifeweave, but she might have inherited it and it is considered her duty to take her mother's place. So Arden is free to go. She is later assaulted by assassins, but fights them off and sends them away. She goes on to a monastery, where we learn more of her backstory. She was raised in the monastery after her father died, so she thinks of the monks as her family. They had trained her in martial arts and she also found that she has the ability to use lifeweave. After prison, she continues training at the monastery and then uses lifeweave in order to find out where Jessa is hiding.
Meanwhile, we learn that Jessa is an astronavigator as part of the crew of a scavenger ship.
This is enough backstory for now. Wish I knew how to say it all in fewer words.
The bad: too many characters, that is, too many weird names to keep track of. Some are better known "Earth" names (Jackson Turner), and some are weird names, but it took me too long to learn them all. The characters are also pretty difficult to distinguish, especially the various mercenaries and scavenger crew. All of them, to a lesser extent Arden but even her, need to be more rounded, shown more sides.
Arden is not the best female character I've read about. She approaches relationships with too much of a casual attitude (you'll see) and it seems that she should be more people-smart if she is a bodyguard. As it is, she is a good fighter but too naive in other respects.
She might have learned some lessons by the end, but it's hard to tell. She might be more cautious, but I'm not sure yet if she takes relationships with people more seriously or if she takes her dutiful feelings down a notch. She could use it.
The book isn't well edited. There are too many times when the rule "show, don't say" is broken. Some things are stated just too obviously. For example, the emperor is sexist. This is stated in too many obvious words:
"Damn that woman. Damn all women. Lyona dying at the worst possible time. Jessa leaving without any regard for her family or her people. This guardswoman refusing to cooperate. Even the empress for not giving him other sons! At least she had been a cooperative and submissive woman in every other way.
It was time to teach these independent-thinking women a lesson."
The good?: yes, there were good stuff. Don't read this for the characters, but read it for the space opera and the ease. There were a few twists in the story, and the plot is "shaky" and needs editing, but otherwise it was a straightforward story and easy to go through. Things really picked up after the first half, though there were some new characters introduced suddenly and I had to get through that. But there was good enough tension through the story to keep me going, and it was worth that.
Deathweave has a sequel called Darkloom, which I will go on to read (note: actually, I just finished and will review that next). I don't mind finding out if Arden has grown up.
A note on the cover art: I doubt that Arden's costume is that revealing; she usually just wore jumpsuits, not some long flowing cloak thing. And the book didn't describe her too closely. Otherwise, it's pretty accurate.