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Unspeakable Things #1
Technomancer
A new kind of alien invasion…
When Quentin Draith wakes up in a private sanatorium, he has no memory of who he is or how he received the injuries riddling his body. All he knows is that he has to get out, away from the drugs being pumped into him and back to the real world to search for answers. His first How did his friend Tony’s internal organs fill with sand, killing him in a Las Vegas car crash?
After a narrow escape, he tracks down the basic he is an investigator and blogger specializing in the supernatural—which is a good thing, because Quentin’s life is getting stranger by the minute. It seems he is one of a special breed, a person with unusual powers. He’s also the prime suspect in a string of murders linked by a series of seemingly mundane objects. The deeper he digs and the harder he works to clear his name, the more Quentin realizes that some truths are better off staying buried…
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 21, 2012
275 people are currently reading
1159 people want to read
About the author
B.V. Larson
134 books1,529 followersBrian Larson is an American science fiction and fantasy author
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 161 reviews
July 30, 2012
Original review posted at Kirkus
Much of what we are exists in the mysterious realm called memory. Our identities reside there. Without memories, what are we? Virtually nothing. Since I had no memories, I decided to investigate my surroundings and build some new ones.
And just like that, Quentin Draith establishes himself as our intrepid hero, someone who is able to recover quickly and efficiently from the fact that he has just woken up alone in a strange room at a sanatorium, strongly sedated, physically injured and with no memory whatsoever. He “knows” that he has to get out and search for answers because he “knows” something sinister is afoot.
The allure of an unreliable narrator is often enough of an incentive for me to pick up a book, but when the unreliability of said narrator is compromised by the contrived reasoning that he just knew, I find myself wondering, why even bother?
Of course Quentin is not wrong and something sinister is definitely afoot in Las Vegas. Soon enough he learns that he is a blogger who specializes in the supernatural, and that he is connected to several unusual deaths. Quentin’s investigations lead him to an underground world where the mysterious leaders of the “Community”—of which he turns out to be a Rogue member—control seemingly mundane objects that actually give powers to their owners.
Part CSI: Las Vegas, part The X-Files with a side of Memento, Technomancer moves in a convoluted fashion from one thread to another (murder investigation, romance, multidimensional strife, as well as Quentin’s fighting off the threat of extra-world invasion from alienlike creatures) without the necessary adroitness to weave each thread into a cohesive whole.
My problems with Technomancer were, as you can surmise, many. The most conspicuous, infuriating of the issues raised by this novel is its problematic depiction of female characters.
Technomancer’s narrative from Quentin’s point of view is extremely emblematic of the “male gaze,” i.e., whenever he meets a female character, Quentin’s description of them goes only as far as said female’s sexual attractiveness. This starts at the very beginning of the book, when a nurse visits him as soon as he wakes up in the sanatorium (don’t forget, this is a man who just woke up with no memory and no notion of his whereabouts):
“Her brunette hair was cut short, but remained feminine.”
When she leaves the room:
“I stared at her as she exited the room, but I was too worried to enjoy the view.”
After Quentin leaves the hospital he meets a girl named Holly, a stripper and casual drug user who he quickly befriends. There is not a single instance in which Quentin describes Holly other than by her looks. In fact, at one point, when he notices a tattoo on her thigh, he thinks, “I wouldn’t mind watching her pole-dance.” Mind you, this scene happens immediately after Quentin witnesses a young man being shot, and shortly after Quentin has nearly been killed by an encounter with an alien-looking being. Suffice it to say, the level of depth of this character is only skin deep.
When Holly is eventually kidnapped, this is what Quentin thinks:
“It didn't matter if Holly and I had slept together—even though we hadn't, I still wanted her back.”
What a hero.
They eventually do sleep together, after he has rescued her, and soon after this amorous interlude, Holly is horrendously murdered. When Quentin finds her dead naked body, his main preoccupation is to start looking for something to cover her up in order to give her dignity (and make it look less like a sex crime), but then he thinks to himself:
“Everything Holly owned in the way of bed wear was sexy.”
So even as she lies there, murdered, what she wears still defines Holly. Of course, her death gives Quentin the extra push he needs to go after the villains.
Concurrently to all this, Quentin is also getting attached to a second female character, Jenna, a young bride he met at a casino while she was still wearing a wedding dress following her husband’s disappearance on their wedding night. Quentin is supposed to help this young woman find her missing husband, yet despite the fact that she is obviously distressed he can’t help but ogle her. When she starts crying (on his chest, of course) over the death of her husband, he describes the moment thusly:
“I stroked her hair once, then stopped myself. The scent of her perfumed body was in my face, and I felt myself attracted to her, and I began to feel protective.”
Sexist protagonists are of course not a problem per se, so long as this sexism is challenged by the text somehow. But Quentin’s point of view goes completely unchallenged. Neither woman has any agency whatsoever, and both Holly and Jenna need Quentin’s help to solve their problems. One of them is even kind enough to get killed to give him extra motivation. Of course, the girl who is murdered is the (sexy) drug-addict stripper. The other female character is the (sexy) innocent bride who survives to become his paramour because, obviously, she didn’t really love her husband.
I wish I had no memory of reading this book.
Much of what we are exists in the mysterious realm called memory. Our identities reside there. Without memories, what are we? Virtually nothing. Since I had no memories, I decided to investigate my surroundings and build some new ones.
And just like that, Quentin Draith establishes himself as our intrepid hero, someone who is able to recover quickly and efficiently from the fact that he has just woken up alone in a strange room at a sanatorium, strongly sedated, physically injured and with no memory whatsoever. He “knows” that he has to get out and search for answers because he “knows” something sinister is afoot.
The allure of an unreliable narrator is often enough of an incentive for me to pick up a book, but when the unreliability of said narrator is compromised by the contrived reasoning that he just knew, I find myself wondering, why even bother?
Of course Quentin is not wrong and something sinister is definitely afoot in Las Vegas. Soon enough he learns that he is a blogger who specializes in the supernatural, and that he is connected to several unusual deaths. Quentin’s investigations lead him to an underground world where the mysterious leaders of the “Community”—of which he turns out to be a Rogue member—control seemingly mundane objects that actually give powers to their owners.
Part CSI: Las Vegas, part The X-Files with a side of Memento, Technomancer moves in a convoluted fashion from one thread to another (murder investigation, romance, multidimensional strife, as well as Quentin’s fighting off the threat of extra-world invasion from alienlike creatures) without the necessary adroitness to weave each thread into a cohesive whole.
My problems with Technomancer were, as you can surmise, many. The most conspicuous, infuriating of the issues raised by this novel is its problematic depiction of female characters.
Technomancer’s narrative from Quentin’s point of view is extremely emblematic of the “male gaze,” i.e., whenever he meets a female character, Quentin’s description of them goes only as far as said female’s sexual attractiveness. This starts at the very beginning of the book, when a nurse visits him as soon as he wakes up in the sanatorium (don’t forget, this is a man who just woke up with no memory and no notion of his whereabouts):
“Her brunette hair was cut short, but remained feminine.”
When she leaves the room:
“I stared at her as she exited the room, but I was too worried to enjoy the view.”
After Quentin leaves the hospital he meets a girl named Holly, a stripper and casual drug user who he quickly befriends. There is not a single instance in which Quentin describes Holly other than by her looks. In fact, at one point, when he notices a tattoo on her thigh, he thinks, “I wouldn’t mind watching her pole-dance.” Mind you, this scene happens immediately after Quentin witnesses a young man being shot, and shortly after Quentin has nearly been killed by an encounter with an alien-looking being. Suffice it to say, the level of depth of this character is only skin deep.
When Holly is eventually kidnapped, this is what Quentin thinks:
“It didn't matter if Holly and I had slept together—even though we hadn't, I still wanted her back.”
What a hero.
They eventually do sleep together, after he has rescued her, and soon after this amorous interlude, Holly is horrendously murdered. When Quentin finds her dead naked body, his main preoccupation is to start looking for something to cover her up in order to give her dignity (and make it look less like a sex crime), but then he thinks to himself:
“Everything Holly owned in the way of bed wear was sexy.”
So even as she lies there, murdered, what she wears still defines Holly. Of course, her death gives Quentin the extra push he needs to go after the villains.
Concurrently to all this, Quentin is also getting attached to a second female character, Jenna, a young bride he met at a casino while she was still wearing a wedding dress following her husband’s disappearance on their wedding night. Quentin is supposed to help this young woman find her missing husband, yet despite the fact that she is obviously distressed he can’t help but ogle her. When she starts crying (on his chest, of course) over the death of her husband, he describes the moment thusly:
“I stroked her hair once, then stopped myself. The scent of her perfumed body was in my face, and I felt myself attracted to her, and I began to feel protective.”
Sexist protagonists are of course not a problem per se, so long as this sexism is challenged by the text somehow. But Quentin’s point of view goes completely unchallenged. Neither woman has any agency whatsoever, and both Holly and Jenna need Quentin’s help to solve their problems. One of them is even kind enough to get killed to give him extra motivation. Of course, the girl who is murdered is the (sexy) drug-addict stripper. The other female character is the (sexy) innocent bride who survives to become his paramour because, obviously, she didn’t really love her husband.
I wish I had no memory of reading this book.
July 29, 2020
Technomancer
Unspeakable Things, Book 1
By: B. V. Larson
Narrated by: Christopher Lane
Series: Unspeakable Things, Book 1
This is a very unique fantasy! I had never tried this author's work before but that will change! This caught me up in the story right away when the main character wakes up in a hospital and doesn't remember his past. He has healing injuries and a picture but doesn't know the people. At this point it sounds like a dozen other books but it gets very different! He gets thrown through a portal after a bit, finds out there are grey men, items that have magical powers, and strange characters and creatures! Lots of action, mysteries, and amazing and fresh fantasy! Really enjoyed this! The narration was excellent too. Free to listen when borrowed with Amazon prime!
Unspeakable Things, Book 1
By: B. V. Larson
Narrated by: Christopher Lane
Series: Unspeakable Things, Book 1
This is a very unique fantasy! I had never tried this author's work before but that will change! This caught me up in the story right away when the main character wakes up in a hospital and doesn't remember his past. He has healing injuries and a picture but doesn't know the people. At this point it sounds like a dozen other books but it gets very different! He gets thrown through a portal after a bit, finds out there are grey men, items that have magical powers, and strange characters and creatures! Lots of action, mysteries, and amazing and fresh fantasy! Really enjoyed this! The narration was excellent too. Free to listen when borrowed with Amazon prime!
April 26, 2013
Originally posted at FanLit.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
When Quentin Draith wakes up in a bed in a private hospital he has no idea how he got there or even who he is. He does realize, though, that he’s being drugged and, therefore, somebody must be trying to control him. After he manages to escape, he learns that he lives in Las Vegas and blogs about supernatural events. And there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in Las Vegas these days.
Quentin soon discovers that the world contains an assortment of powerful magical objects and that he’s a rogue member of a community of people who are trying to collect them. These objects have something to do with the mysterious Grey Men who keep popping out of rips in space and gruesomely killing Quentin’s new friends. When Quentin meets a pretty young bride whose husband has just disappeared into a rip, he feels protective and wants to save her from the Grey Men. Eventually he develops a plan that he hopes will destroy the bad guys where they live — inside the rips.
Technomancer started off well enough. In fact it began just like Roger Zelazny’s AMBER CHRONICLES (Corwin wakes up in a private sanitorium with amnesia after nearly dying in a car accident and he realizes he’s being kept drugged.) I wanted to know who Quentin Draith was and why he’s being sedated in a hospital bed. But in the end, Technomancer didn’t manage to fulfill any of my criteria for good entertainment.
One major problem was that nothing in the story felt real to me. This starts right away when Quentin gets out of the hospital. He doesn’t act like a man who has really lost his identity. He keeps mentioning how he doesn’t know anything about himself (though he tends to remember things that are convenient to the plot), but we never see him investigating himself, his friends, or his family. He knows his name and he knows he is a blogger, so why doesn’t he look for himself on Facebook or do a Google search? (How many Quentin Draiths can there be in Las Vegas?) He reads his own blog for information about supernatural happenings, but not for personal information. Similarly, B.V. Larson didn’t make me believe in his other characters, his world, or the plot.
Another problem was that the plot just wasn’t compelling. It evoked no tension, excitement, or any other emotion from me. I felt like I was reading a story in the newspaper. I got the facts, but no enjoyment out of them. I was bored with the story and I didn’t like any of the characters well enough to care what happened to them. The writing style offered nothing to make up for this — no beauty, no humor, nothing. In fact, I thought it was a little sloppy. For example, when Quentin is lying in his hospital bed with his eyes closed, a nurse walks in. He describes how sexy she is (every woman is sized up this way) before he even opens his eyes. In another part Quentin is questioning someone and he tell us “it turned out he knew plenty” but a couple of minutes later he tells us “he really didn’t know all that much.” These sorts of things are minor, but they add up.
For a novel with the name Technomancer, I was expecting something kind of cool. But there isn’t any technomancing going on. We’re given that line about unexplained technology looking like magic to someone who doesn’t understand the technology, but none of the magical objects are given any sort of technological explanation which makes them just seem like magical objects. If there is a distinction, it’s too subtle to make a difference to the reader, at least at this point in the series.
I listened to Christopher Lane narrate Brilliance Audio’s version of Technomancer. He’s really good, and perhaps the only reason I managed to finish the book. If Brilliance Audio sends me a review copy of the second book in the UNSPEAKABLE THINGS series, I may give it a try to see if the story gets better, but I won’t be seeking it out. I’m just not interested in Quentin Draith’s story. It’s hard to root for a protagonist who you know nothing about while you watch him stumble around doing stupid things and judging the women he meets only by how sexy they are.
By the way, this is another 47North book. I’m not having good luck with those.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
When Quentin Draith wakes up in a bed in a private hospital he has no idea how he got there or even who he is. He does realize, though, that he’s being drugged and, therefore, somebody must be trying to control him. After he manages to escape, he learns that he lives in Las Vegas and blogs about supernatural events. And there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in Las Vegas these days.
Quentin soon discovers that the world contains an assortment of powerful magical objects and that he’s a rogue member of a community of people who are trying to collect them. These objects have something to do with the mysterious Grey Men who keep popping out of rips in space and gruesomely killing Quentin’s new friends. When Quentin meets a pretty young bride whose husband has just disappeared into a rip, he feels protective and wants to save her from the Grey Men. Eventually he develops a plan that he hopes will destroy the bad guys where they live — inside the rips.
Technomancer started off well enough. In fact it began just like Roger Zelazny’s AMBER CHRONICLES (Corwin wakes up in a private sanitorium with amnesia after nearly dying in a car accident and he realizes he’s being kept drugged.) I wanted to know who Quentin Draith was and why he’s being sedated in a hospital bed. But in the end, Technomancer didn’t manage to fulfill any of my criteria for good entertainment.
One major problem was that nothing in the story felt real to me. This starts right away when Quentin gets out of the hospital. He doesn’t act like a man who has really lost his identity. He keeps mentioning how he doesn’t know anything about himself (though he tends to remember things that are convenient to the plot), but we never see him investigating himself, his friends, or his family. He knows his name and he knows he is a blogger, so why doesn’t he look for himself on Facebook or do a Google search? (How many Quentin Draiths can there be in Las Vegas?) He reads his own blog for information about supernatural happenings, but not for personal information. Similarly, B.V. Larson didn’t make me believe in his other characters, his world, or the plot.
Another problem was that the plot just wasn’t compelling. It evoked no tension, excitement, or any other emotion from me. I felt like I was reading a story in the newspaper. I got the facts, but no enjoyment out of them. I was bored with the story and I didn’t like any of the characters well enough to care what happened to them. The writing style offered nothing to make up for this — no beauty, no humor, nothing. In fact, I thought it was a little sloppy. For example, when Quentin is lying in his hospital bed with his eyes closed, a nurse walks in. He describes how sexy she is (every woman is sized up this way) before he even opens his eyes. In another part Quentin is questioning someone and he tell us “it turned out he knew plenty” but a couple of minutes later he tells us “he really didn’t know all that much.” These sorts of things are minor, but they add up.
For a novel with the name Technomancer, I was expecting something kind of cool. But there isn’t any technomancing going on. We’re given that line about unexplained technology looking like magic to someone who doesn’t understand the technology, but none of the magical objects are given any sort of technological explanation which makes them just seem like magical objects. If there is a distinction, it’s too subtle to make a difference to the reader, at least at this point in the series.
I listened to Christopher Lane narrate Brilliance Audio’s version of Technomancer. He’s really good, and perhaps the only reason I managed to finish the book. If Brilliance Audio sends me a review copy of the second book in the UNSPEAKABLE THINGS series, I may give it a try to see if the story gets better, but I won’t be seeking it out. I’m just not interested in Quentin Draith’s story. It’s hard to root for a protagonist who you know nothing about while you watch him stumble around doing stupid things and judging the women he meets only by how sexy they are.
By the way, this is another 47North book. I’m not having good luck with those.
dnf
December 29, 2012Technomancer is you might get if you combined Jason Bourne and the TV show X-Files. The start of the plot is very Bourne Identity-ish: the main character, who goes by the rather romantic name of Quentin Draith, wakes up in a hospital with amnesia and a rather disturbing familiarity with the mechanics of violence. As he wanders around and irritates people, he discovers that something's going wrong in his hometown of Las Vegas: mysterious objects, each of which has a specific power, are appearing all over the place and creating chaos. They appear to be controlled by a powerful set of people known only as the Community. Bizarre deaths--disappearances, spontaneous combustions, choking on sand, and more--are becoming common. Draith discovers that he has one of these mysterious objects himself and sets out to unravel the mystery.
I didn't finish this, but not because I particularly disliked it--simply because it was due at the library and I didn't care enough about it to renew it. (My library charges $$ for renews/holds/requests.) Someday I'll see it again at the library and finish it...until then, here's my reaction to the portion I read (about the first two-thirds).
Draith reminds me a lot of Sandman Slim (Richard Kadrey)--his attitude feels too violent, heartless, and nihilistic to me. I also don't find his humour remotely entertaining, but people in his world definitely do and laugh sycophantically at his "jokes"--always a bad combination for me. I also found him one of the most arrogant, sexist jerks I've come across in a while--to the point that he actually hits on a recently bereaved bride and comments that he might have rescued her even if she were not attractive, etc. What ticked me off even more is that, when speaking with said bride who watched her husband disappear in something like an antimatter tornado, his main preoccupation is trying to determine whether the husband was able to consummate the wedding before he died because apparently if the groom had "tapped that ass" (gah I hate that expression) Quentin can feel a little better about his death. First, the groom is dead, so if it were me I'd be putting my empathy with the bride--the inability of the protagonist to even empathize with females is like male gaze to the max. Second, for me at least, that is one hell of a repulsive train of thought given the circumstances. Anyway, I can't find a character to attach my emotional interest in, and the death count, especially given its graphic nature, is already much higher than I usually take. And I know, I know, I'm judging prematurely...but the world just doesn't feel very real or well-thought out to me. All in all, it's not a bad book...just not a great fit for me. Definitely recommended for fans of Sandman Slim, though.
I didn't finish this, but not because I particularly disliked it--simply because it was due at the library and I didn't care enough about it to renew it. (My library charges $$ for renews/holds/requests.) Someday I'll see it again at the library and finish it...until then, here's my reaction to the portion I read (about the first two-thirds).
Draith reminds me a lot of Sandman Slim (Richard Kadrey)--his attitude feels too violent, heartless, and nihilistic to me. I also don't find his humour remotely entertaining, but people in his world definitely do and laugh sycophantically at his "jokes"--always a bad combination for me. I also found him one of the most arrogant, sexist jerks I've come across in a while--to the point that he actually hits on a recently bereaved bride and comments that he might have rescued her even if she were not attractive, etc. What ticked me off even more is that, when speaking with said bride who watched her husband disappear in something like an antimatter tornado, his main preoccupation is trying to determine whether the husband was able to consummate the wedding before he died because apparently if the groom had "tapped that ass" (gah I hate that expression) Quentin can feel a little better about his death. First, the groom is dead, so if it were me I'd be putting my empathy with the bride--the inability of the protagonist to even empathize with females is like male gaze to the max. Second, for me at least, that is one hell of a repulsive train of thought given the circumstances. Anyway, I can't find a character to attach my emotional interest in, and the death count, especially given its graphic nature, is already much higher than I usually take. And I know, I know, I'm judging prematurely...but the world just doesn't feel very real or well-thought out to me. All in all, it's not a bad book...just not a great fit for me. Definitely recommended for fans of Sandman Slim, though.
August 2, 2012
I'd put this at maybe a 2.5 if half-marks were allowed. I'm fairly certain this book's main premise was inspired by if not directly copied from the 2006 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries "The Lost Room", which featured Objects like those described here. I loved that show, and so I had high hopes for where this book would take the concept. Unfortunately, it got heavily bogged down in detective-story style mumbo-jumbo, flawed yet hot "dames", and obsessing over details of Las Vegas as though the city itself were a character. For a book called "Technomancer" there was not a lot of either "techno" nor "mancer"-ing going on, and the lack of real exploration of the Objects and the setting let me down. I may read the next one, I may not. I'm not really sure yet.
January 8, 2018
I can't finish this book, due to these two problems.
1) The first chapter is a direct rip-off of Nine Princes in Amber. I don't know how the author got away with this one, as the plot is identical. He just changed the names and redid it in his writing style.
2) Writing style: I am not a fan of first person novels because most of them end up written so poorly that they end up sounding like a journal instead of a novel. Too much "I, I, I" and not enough focus on the environment he is in. I can't get into the book because I really don't care what is going on in his head. It reads just like a journal, not a novel.
1) The first chapter is a direct rip-off of Nine Princes in Amber. I don't know how the author got away with this one, as the plot is identical. He just changed the names and redid it in his writing style.
2) Writing style: I am not a fan of first person novels because most of them end up written so poorly that they end up sounding like a journal instead of a novel. Too much "I, I, I" and not enough focus on the environment he is in. I can't get into the book because I really don't care what is going on in his head. It reads just like a journal, not a novel.
May 9, 2013
I'm mot much for your standard whodunit fare, but add some aliens and the ability to travel between worlds and I'm in. It was fun. I'm going to read more.
October 20, 2024
Fun, neo-noir Sci-Fi romp. Liked some of the ideas in the book but not enough to keep me reading the series
September 5, 2015
Alternate reality quasi-science fiction. Highly recommended.
Set in modern day Vegas, a man awakens in a hospital, with no memory of who he is or where he is, but with a well honed capacity for violence. His only clue is what seems to be a family picture he finds under his pillow. The set up is exactly like Jason Borne, and one may be tempted to quit, yelling, "rip-off." But after the first couple of pages, Larson takes us in a completely different direction.
As our hero (and narrator) seeks to effect his escape, he (and thus we) discovers that this world does not work quite like ours. People have what appear to be magical powers; rifts open from time to time in reality, and people disappear.
Science fiction, but recast as a detective story, as our narrator needs to discover how his world differs from ours, and at the same time figure out why people around him keep dying. Well written, keeps the pages turning. Highly recommended.
Set in modern day Vegas, a man awakens in a hospital, with no memory of who he is or where he is, but with a well honed capacity for violence. His only clue is what seems to be a family picture he finds under his pillow. The set up is exactly like Jason Borne, and one may be tempted to quit, yelling, "rip-off." But after the first couple of pages, Larson takes us in a completely different direction.
As our hero (and narrator) seeks to effect his escape, he (and thus we) discovers that this world does not work quite like ours. People have what appear to be magical powers; rifts open from time to time in reality, and people disappear.
Science fiction, but recast as a detective story, as our narrator needs to discover how his world differs from ours, and at the same time figure out why people around him keep dying. Well written, keeps the pages turning. Highly recommended.
February 16, 2014
This book reminds me of several movies/TV shows--Sliders, Voyagers, Paycheck--minus the objects that gave the owners some minor power. Great concept and characters, fast-paced narration, so it was a fast unputdownable read. There was no technical jargon or deep scientific words. In some places I did notice some minor science-related flaws that should've made some things/events impossible, both in theory and reality and on this world or a parallel one, but then this is sci-fi so anything is possible.
February 3, 2013
this is what the x files would have been if fox mulder had been replaced with Mike hammer with amnesia .
no doubt this is aims at the male reader as there is a lot in there that some women might find sexist .
as a first crack of the whip I thought it holds a lot of potential , and in the books to come hopefully we see a bit more depth .
I never judge the first book in a series too harshly because it is the introduction.
no doubt this is aims at the male reader as there is a lot in there that some women might find sexist .
as a first crack of the whip I thought it holds a lot of potential , and in the books to come hopefully we see a bit more depth .
I never judge the first book in a series too harshly because it is the introduction.
July 5, 2012
Due to Terms of Service with the Amazon.com Vine program, I cannot post my review here. So, go to my blog - that's where all the cool pictures are - and read it there. A link to the book is included there. For explanation as to change in rating, please see full review at my blog: http://katysozaeva.blogspot.com/2012/...
August 9, 2012
oh boy this was bad.
i didn't made it past page 53.... goes to say... it was really really bad.
first time i hated a book written in the first person. I I I I every sentence started with I.... ugh
thanks but no thanks
i didn't made it past page 53.... goes to say... it was really really bad.
first time i hated a book written in the first person. I I I I every sentence started with I.... ugh
thanks but no thanks
May 29, 2015
I particularly enjoyed how the beginning of this novel was directly ripped off from Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, except not as well written. The rest of this book, until I gave up on it, also felt horribly familiar.
June 15, 2014
It's like a mash-up between CSI, Fringe and Warehouse 13, (I don't watch too much TV). Absolute page turner.
October 9, 2014
What did I just read?
February 13, 2017
Not mind-blowing, but not horrible, either. If we could give half-stars, I'd put this one at 2.5, but since we can't it gets rounded up as a bonus. At first glance, one might think the title would generally allude to the concept of someone creating advanced technology that was indistinguishable from magic, or possibly mixing the arcane with the technological to generate a hybrid of the two. Unfortunately, the book delivers neither.
Instead, we're given an amnesiac blogger of supernatural things, who wakes up in an asylum following an accident he can't remember, and is hounded by people he has no memory of previously offending. Our hero has apparently has gained access to objects of power that allow him to perform small acts of improbability, such as turning the mechanism of a lock into mush in order to break in to or out of buildings, or generating a localized field of luck to allow for racking up big wins at a casino. Nobody knows how to create these objects, as they are almost always found, and the titular "technomancy" isn't even name-checked until almost halfway through the book, when another wielder of objects uses it in explanation of a theory of how the objects work. Even then, they still have no clue, and fall back on the "it must be super-advanced technology, because magic doesn't exist" trope.
The book bounces from place to place around Las Vegas as the protagonist stumbles through trying to figure out who he is and keep from getting killed, by threats from both our world and other dimensions. Dealing with these threats comes to a head very quickly at the end of the book, making the climax of the action feel rushed, and leaves more plot points unanswered than it resolves - which is obviously setting the book up to be the beginning of a series.
I bought this book on a discount as a Kindle recommendation from Amazon. Quite honestly, I feel that the reduced cost I paid for both this book and its first sequel was an over-charge, and I highly doubt I'll even bother reading the second one.
Instead, we're given an amnesiac blogger of supernatural things, who wakes up in an asylum following an accident he can't remember, and is hounded by people he has no memory of previously offending. Our hero has apparently has gained access to objects of power that allow him to perform small acts of improbability, such as turning the mechanism of a lock into mush in order to break in to or out of buildings, or generating a localized field of luck to allow for racking up big wins at a casino. Nobody knows how to create these objects, as they are almost always found, and the titular "technomancy" isn't even name-checked until almost halfway through the book, when another wielder of objects uses it in explanation of a theory of how the objects work. Even then, they still have no clue, and fall back on the "it must be super-advanced technology, because magic doesn't exist" trope.
The book bounces from place to place around Las Vegas as the protagonist stumbles through trying to figure out who he is and keep from getting killed, by threats from both our world and other dimensions. Dealing with these threats comes to a head very quickly at the end of the book, making the climax of the action feel rushed, and leaves more plot points unanswered than it resolves - which is obviously setting the book up to be the beginning of a series.
I bought this book on a discount as a Kindle recommendation from Amazon. Quite honestly, I feel that the reduced cost I paid for both this book and its first sequel was an over-charge, and I highly doubt I'll even bother reading the second one.
November 29, 2017
For a novel that is titled technomancer, there is not much tech in the plot.
The story turns around mundane objects that have magic powers and the people that use them. One of the characters describes something about the magic as yet unknown technology, but I think is only an attempt to make a cool title.
The protagonist awakes without memory in a sanatorium and has to discover his past and the truth about a series of violent murders that are taking place in his hometown of Las Vegas.
In the end, the motivation of the various characters and the plot itself are not clear and sometimes is contradictory: Why was Quentin memory erased? Why was Quentin "released" to investigate the murders? Doesn't the powerful members of "The community" already know who was behind the attacks? Why does Quentin not take time to investigate himself?
Also the fact that Quentin being a Blogger is very weird. He became a competent magic user is a matter of days. Why was not Quentin able to do this before?
The worldbuilding is also a little inconsistent: "Why some people are unable to left their "domains"? Why "The Community" allow the attack on the gray man and why wat that done is such an amateur way?
And after all that, the plot reminded me a lot of "The Lost Room", a TV show about mundane magic objects and group of people that seek them and "Warehouse 13", that is also about magical objects.
In the end, the idea was interesting, but not very well developed, with uninteresting characters and an unconvincing plot.
The story turns around mundane objects that have magic powers and the people that use them. One of the characters describes something about the magic as yet unknown technology, but I think is only an attempt to make a cool title.
The protagonist awakes without memory in a sanatorium and has to discover his past and the truth about a series of violent murders that are taking place in his hometown of Las Vegas.
In the end, the motivation of the various characters and the plot itself are not clear and sometimes is contradictory: Why was Quentin memory erased? Why was Quentin "released" to investigate the murders? Doesn't the powerful members of "The community" already know who was behind the attacks? Why does Quentin not take time to investigate himself?
Also the fact that Quentin being a Blogger is very weird. He became a competent magic user is a matter of days. Why was not Quentin able to do this before?
The worldbuilding is also a little inconsistent: "Why some people are unable to left their "domains"? Why "The Community" allow the attack on the gray man and why wat that done is such an amateur way?
And after all that, the plot reminded me a lot of "The Lost Room", a TV show about mundane magic objects and group of people that seek them and "Warehouse 13", that is also about magical objects.
In the end, the idea was interesting, but not very well developed, with uninteresting characters and an unconvincing plot.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 4, 2018
This story had promise, but what really turned me off was just how sexist the book is. This really seems to be a theme for BV Larson, but at least in the Undying Mercenaries series some of the women exist as more than just sexual conquests for James McGill. Almost all of the women in this book are defined by their looks, and do nothing outside of being someone for the main character (Draith) to ogle at or to rescue from some misfortune and eventually have sex with.
The sexism on its own probably wouldn't have bothered me so much had the rest of the book been any good. None of the characters are really empathetic or likable other than maybe Jenna, the new bride whose husband goes missing on the day of their wedding and kickstarts the story. Draith feels like Larson's attempt at a cool, suave, Bond-like character, but he failed miserably. Nothing about Draith's character is cool. He's not very bright, he's incredibly self-centered, and most of all, he's just plain boring.
I tried to truly finish this book, but by the end I was skipping whole chapters just to get it over with. I never really cared about what happened to any of the characters, which is a pretty big problem for any story.
The sexism on its own probably wouldn't have bothered me so much had the rest of the book been any good. None of the characters are really empathetic or likable other than maybe Jenna, the new bride whose husband goes missing on the day of their wedding and kickstarts the story. Draith feels like Larson's attempt at a cool, suave, Bond-like character, but he failed miserably. Nothing about Draith's character is cool. He's not very bright, he's incredibly self-centered, and most of all, he's just plain boring.
I tried to truly finish this book, but by the end I was skipping whole chapters just to get it over with. I never really cared about what happened to any of the characters, which is a pretty big problem for any story.
June 9, 2019
It was a dark and stormy night
This was a trite and predictable novel (except that Jenna really did turn out to be an innocent naive blond). I kept waiting for a Maltese falcon type ending, but I was disappointed. The story just wasn't that unique. It was first party narrative about a rough type of guy put into a sanitorium after an auto accident where his friend, Tony, dies by vomiting sand. It seems that Las Vegas has hit the skids, and people are dying under strange circumstances. People are disappearing into vortex's of smoke; strange creatures are being seen; and some people are acquiring charms that create magical effects. After a girlfriend dies, and our main character begins to understand what's him on, we solve the problems by going to the land of the demons armed with a big Ben.
This was a trite and predictable novel (except that Jenna really did turn out to be an innocent naive blond). I kept waiting for a Maltese falcon type ending, but I was disappointed. The story just wasn't that unique. It was first party narrative about a rough type of guy put into a sanitorium after an auto accident where his friend, Tony, dies by vomiting sand. It seems that Las Vegas has hit the skids, and people are dying under strange circumstances. People are disappearing into vortex's of smoke; strange creatures are being seen; and some people are acquiring charms that create magical effects. After a girlfriend dies, and our main character begins to understand what's him on, we solve the problems by going to the land of the demons armed with a big Ben.
July 30, 2019
Not much to say about this one. The story in itself was good but it was hard to get into.
Written sorta like a Micky Spillane story,which I generally enjoy, this one was extremely hard to get into. You wonder throughout the book of the protagonist is a good guy or a bad guy and sadly, he seems to wonder too. As a matter of fact, this seemed to be the case with at least four of the central characters so you never got a feel of who you wanted to see win. When I start a book I generally read it to the end whether I like it or not with the hopes that the story will redeem itself before the end. The redemption in this one was it finally ended. I have read other B.V. Larson stories that I appreciated. This was not one of them.
Written sorta like a Micky Spillane story,which I generally enjoy, this one was extremely hard to get into. You wonder throughout the book of the protagonist is a good guy or a bad guy and sadly, he seems to wonder too. As a matter of fact, this seemed to be the case with at least four of the central characters so you never got a feel of who you wanted to see win. When I start a book I generally read it to the end whether I like it or not with the hopes that the story will redeem itself before the end. The redemption in this one was it finally ended. I have read other B.V. Larson stories that I appreciated. This was not one of them.
May 25, 2019
This was a fun read - a little bit different from what I've been reading -- yet mixing crime with the supernatural. It worked. Draith wakes up in a sanitarium with no memory. But soon he realizes he is in the middle of a battle or war between alternate worlds where there are tears and you can cross through. Rouges have objects of power which help them to melt locks, or have luck, or heal fast. Draith is a powerful agent, but he doesn't remember who he is or what his place is. This was a fun divergent read which felt like a tv series that I would enjoy.
May 29, 2023
Technomancer - not your standard mystery
Technomancer (Book 1) caught me completely off-guard. I assumed from the title that this was not going to be a straight-up thriller. As I started reading the book, I wasn't getting the mystical vibe until I did. Author B. V. Larson takes you into a world where a unique series of events has the main character thrown into a mad battle between earth and invaders from parallel realities. I'm looking forward to the next book in this series. The Audible book performed by Christopher Lane is great.
Technomancer (Book 1) caught me completely off-guard. I assumed from the title that this was not going to be a straight-up thriller. As I started reading the book, I wasn't getting the mystical vibe until I did. Author B. V. Larson takes you into a world where a unique series of events has the main character thrown into a mad battle between earth and invaders from parallel realities. I'm looking forward to the next book in this series. The Audible book performed by Christopher Lane is great.
June 29, 2020
Dropped. Oh all the reasons why this sucks. The endless nonsense of the cool, masculine main-character waking up in a hospital bed without his memories and within 3 pages he has taken out the biggest orderly in the hospital, is sure he has to solve a .. thing. He ogles the nurse on the way out. Its just so bad, so so so bad. The sexism, the shitty masculinity the prose the everything. I got about half way though and I cannot.
July 6, 2020
Disappointing - a great concept with good writing and pacing that is let down by the story and the characters. I didn't really like any of them but instead felt completely indifferent throughout. I was also saddened that the most interesting elements of the plot were either glossed over or were ignored completely.
There were snippets of great story that demonstrated Larson's ability to write, however these are few and far between.
A disappointing read
There were snippets of great story that demonstrated Larson's ability to write, however these are few and far between.
A disappointing read
April 2, 2018
I finished it so it was not the worst. Having said that, I was left with a bitter aftertaste after finishing it. There were too many holes and inconsistencies. Too many violent swings in characters at odds to being allies. The kernel is interesting. I seem to have been on an alternate universes theme lately. This was not the best by far and I won't be continuing the story in the sequel.
July 16, 2018
Unreliable narrators are not my thing at all.
Sexist unreliable narrators in a story with undeveloped female characters whose only value appears to provide victims and sex appeal is not my thing.
The story had interesting elements and a lot of promise. Unfortunately the story fails to deliver and the narrative continued to be unreliable.
Sexist unreliable narrators in a story with undeveloped female characters whose only value appears to provide victims and sex appeal is not my thing.
The story had interesting elements and a lot of promise. Unfortunately the story fails to deliver and the narrative continued to be unreliable.
September 14, 2018
This is not what I expected at all. I thought this was going to be about someone using technology like magic (like the witch in the Demon Accord Series). Instead what I got was a bunch of Greys and portal technology. Not liking this one bit.
Well... I completed this book and have no interest of continuing the series.
2/5 Stars
Well... I completed this book and have no interest of continuing the series.
2/5 Stars
May 27, 2019
The Lost Room?
That was the name of a SyFy series back in 2006. The room was interdimensional; appearing briefly at odd intervals . Any objects removed from this room were indestructible and granted the user various powers, much like the objects in this story. Maybe Mr Larson didn't use this as the basis for his book, but it sure looks that way.
That was the name of a SyFy series back in 2006. The room was interdimensional; appearing briefly at odd intervals . Any objects removed from this room were indestructible and granted the user various powers, much like the objects in this story. Maybe Mr Larson didn't use this as the basis for his book, but it sure looks that way.
August 21, 2019
So convoluted.
I do not know what the author was doing. It starts action packed and then kind of peters out then comes back, then gets weird then there’s woman who just can’t get enough and the ending was so confusing I gave up. Oh my god believe the other one star reviews. I was hoping it’d be similar to Steve Mchugh but there is no world building in this technomancer story.
I do not know what the author was doing. It starts action packed and then kind of peters out then comes back, then gets weird then there’s woman who just can’t get enough and the ending was so confusing I gave up. Oh my god believe the other one star reviews. I was hoping it’d be similar to Steve Mchugh but there is no world building in this technomancer story.
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