SYNOPSIS:
Nobody leaves Osiris. Adelaide Rechnov Wealthy socialite and granddaughter of the Architect, she spends her time in pointless luxury, rebelling against her family in a series of jaded social extravagances and scandals until her twin brother disappears in mysterious circumstances. Vikram Bai lives in the Western Quarter, home to the poor descendants of storm refugees and effectively quarantined from the wealthy elite. His people live with cold and starvation, but the coming brutal winter promises civil unrest, and a return to the riots of previous years. As tensions rise in the city, can Adelaide and Vikram bridge the divide at the heart of Osiris before conspiracies bring them to the edge of disaster?
REVIEW:
To be honest with you, in recent times there seems to be a hell of a lot of dystopian science fiction making the rounds and for me there’s only so much you can take unless the author does something different to set them apart from the others out there. In the case of EJ Swift, its a city is sailing on the ocean in a post-apocalyptic future where political machinations vie against personal goals as well as beliefs through the eyes of two principle characters Vikram and Adelaide.
Each brings a different viewpoint to the concept and each has to learn to adapt to the way that the city works within as strong world building battles against human nature in a battle for the upper hand. It is cleverly scripted, the character poles apart and for many this title will more than satisfy due to the hard graft that the author has put in to help you adapt to the situation.
But for me when you’re going through with two main characters they need to have traits that really stand out and have to have a hook that allows the reader to care. Whilst this works very well with Vikram, it really got my goat when I was spending time with Adelaide who I couldn’t associate as to me she came across as nothing more than a dislikeable spoilt brat. Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with that and I suspect that the author has a few shocks in store in the future to knock some of that out of her, but for a first novel when you’re trying to get a reader hooked you need at least one facet that appeals to the reader.
All in a solid enough start and definitely one I’m going to stick around but purely because I had trouble sticking with the chapters where Adelaide leads, I didn’t like this book as much as I should have done.
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