packetcat reads 2022 Week 21 – Stars and Bones by Gareth L. Powell

Pages: 319
Purchased from: Kobo

I really like the premise for this book’s sci-fi world but I found the quality of the writing to be uneven. The writing is at its best during the action scenes and at its worst when it comes to describing a character’s inner thoughts and emotions.

The best way to describe the bad writing here is: unsubtle. It is overly descriptive and dare say I bit cringeworthy especially when describing a situation involving romantic love. I don’t have a problem with romance in my sci-fi but this ain’t the way to do it. There is no tension, no buildup, none of the textual yearning that I associate with the best of fictional romances (see week 5’s The Beautiful Ones for a good example of this).