We have compliment instead of complement, diffuse instead of defuse, telegraph used to mean telegram, tennants (which isn't a word at all) instead of tenets, and sojourn, which means staying in one place, used to mean moving from one place to another. When the author does choose a less common vocabulary word, it's not always the right one. For example: "Fatemeh lit two lamps, then sat down and pulled off her shoes." There are a great many sentences, and in fact whole paragraphs, like this, which do nothing to advance plot, character or setting and, if they were cut, would improve the pacing. Also, it dwells on mundane details of what the characters did, which I soon found tedious. The book was mostly correctly punctuated, though the hyphenation needs work, and, apart from a few sentences with missing words, it was grammatical, but it was written very simply, as if intended for children or speakers of English as a second language. Unfortunately, the execution let it down a little.įirstly, the language. I picked up this book because the premise really appealed to me: a steampunk Western adventure with warm, positive characters.
Still, a great read! I recommend it to anybody looking for a Weird West tale or at least some steampunk that is not set in England, or if YOLO (You Obviously Like Owls). The only real problem I had was that the Legion nanites wielded too much power but did so inconsistently, and it threw the pacing off for me.
I did think some of the dialogue felt stiff, but not distractingly so. At some point, you just have to let go and enjoy yourself. Sure, a lot of the tech is farfeteched, but it's steampunk. The characters - real, imaginary, and varying degrees of both - were interesting and engaging, and David did a wonderful job describing a steampunk/clockwork Old West landscape. This was a really fun ride, and it was great to get a different take on the history of places I enjoyed visiting when I lived in New Mexico. I mean, how could I go wrong with steampunk owls! This did not disappoint. So it should come as no surprise that I expected good things from this book. If you know me at all, you know I have a thing about owls. The Ultimate PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with an animal in the title My Personal Reading Challenge: A steampunk novelīook Riot's Read Harder Challenge: A westernīetter World Books: A book independently published
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