Name: The Waking Engine
ISBN: 9780765334862

David Edison

In a multi-world universe where people experience numerous lives before arriving in a gateway city to true death, former Manhattan resident Cooper arrives in the gateway city only to discover that it has been overrun by a spreading madness that threatens the entire metaverse. A first novel.

The Waking Engine

Deborah Kerr

Wooo, friends, this one hurt. And it hurt because, good Lord, this is a book I should have loved.

Queer main character, combined with an original idea, intricate world-building, and a plethora of characters with cool backstories, and a shit ton of historical/mythological references, all in a sci-fi/fantasy setting: sign me the fuck up.

But unfortunately, The Waking Engine fell short in every way possible.

The story is extremely atmospheric, which is hella weird for a sci-fi/fantasy. Usually there is an importance placed upon setting as it is usually a completely new world, but in TWE there are pages--literal pages--in the middle of scenes dedicated to describing every aspect of the City Unspoken. I would forget what was happening in the scene that's how long these descriptions lasted. And yeah, it sounded cool as hell but I couldn't care about how cool the setting was when I could not keep track of what was happening.

Speaking of: what a disappointing plot. Just flat disappointing. It was building up to be potentially cool and then it fell back into a dues ex machina fix to the problem so the story could wrap up in under 400 pages.

The characters had such potential but instead were paper doll cut-outs of each other. Awesome back stories and usually unused archetypes but when it came to fleshing them out Edison just didn't. They were all *super smart* and *super sarcastic* and *not here for your idiocy* even though NO ONE KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING. Legit. The whole book is a series of scenes of the characters going: you're a moron because you don't know what's happening. Wait, what's happening? 

Cooper had such potential as a main character--a chubby gay guy from New York who should not be anyone's hero. But instead of having a personality he's just a vessel to drive us through the City Unspoken while Sesstri condescends to chase after him. Also, all of the female characters were the same (beautiful beyond compare, hella smart, and bitchy). ALL OF THE FEMALE CHARACTERS except for NiNi and NoNo (easily the best characters in the book because they were different). I am all for smart, take no shit female characters, but when all of them are the exact same--even their speech patterns--it becomes difficult to tell them apart.

Also, everyone is borderline crazy because of the svarning. Which is fine. I would have loved for everyone to jump off the deep end at the midpoint of the book. The problem is that everyone is nuts from page one so there is no gauge for us to judge the strength of the svarning. 

Edison is a talented writer. He can create beautiful imagery and some very witty dialogue. BUT he can also write nonsense sentences. Actual nonsense sentences that no matter how many times I re-read them, made no sense. I'm always here for some lyrical metaphors but holy shit, dude. 

One of the tallest hurdles of this book though is the way Edison names everything. In an attempt to make the City Unspoken feel like a city like no other and from all time periods and the whole metaverse, he mashed everything together. EVERYTHING. And then he just made shit up. There is too much to learn and then keep track of, to keep it all straight and to care about it. The pacing is break-neck from the jump and the breathing beats are tucked so tightly together that you then get a lagging middle and then a nonsensical sprint for the last 150 pages.

I think Edison has a lot of really great ideas and is a really talented writer, he just needs an editor that will sit down and give him tough love.

Skip this one unless you have an overabundance of attention to pay to a world where not much makes sense.

The Waking Engine

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