emfiliane reviewed Superliminal by Andy Kaiser
Review of 'Superliminal' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
This book was acutely painful to read; I had a bad feeling in the first few pages, and by the third chapter I knew it was easily the worst attempt at a crime pulp I've ever read. Imagine every private eye cliche, every terrible one-liner, and then give them a nerdy twist and a completely unlikeable protagonist.
Superliminal rips the danger from Snow Crash and seems to take the rest from the Dresden Files, particularly the rather bad first one; smarmy arrogance, terrible jokes, terrible car, absurdly skilled Marty Sue main character, and an over-reliance on tropes as crutches for bad writing. Even the first Harry Dresden novel had far more deftness and imagination than this; all we have here is a fill-in-the-blank pulp while Dev runs rings around the Keystone Kops that practically worship him. No attempt is ever made at creating a remotely human or realistic character, creating …
This book was acutely painful to read; I had a bad feeling in the first few pages, and by the third chapter I knew it was easily the worst attempt at a crime pulp I've ever read. Imagine every private eye cliche, every terrible one-liner, and then give them a nerdy twist and a completely unlikeable protagonist.
Superliminal rips the danger from Snow Crash and seems to take the rest from the Dresden Files, particularly the rather bad first one; smarmy arrogance, terrible jokes, terrible car, absurdly skilled Marty Sue main character, and an over-reliance on tropes as crutches for bad writing. Even the first Harry Dresden novel had far more deftness and imagination than this; all we have here is a fill-in-the-blank pulp while Dev runs rings around the Keystone Kops that practically worship him. No attempt is ever made at creating a remotely human or realistic character, creating striking wordplay, or adding any insight into the world, real or fictional.
Terrible Quotes:
"A good thing, because Lee's next words put a floating point on my integer variable. In layman's terms, I was creeped out."
"There was a pattern to the destroyed devices. I could almost taste it. Or maybe at was my craving for Italian."
"This particular late night coffee joint happened to be filled with people who had nothing better to do at night than chain-smoke and talk to friends. You might think it contradictory - having both an active social life and a fatal habit - but it happens more often than you think."
There is one passage of a few pages that really amazed me, however. When the virus finally hits Dev, the description of seeing the world down to the biological systems and then the molecular level was actually quite engaging and fresh. If the rest had brought any of that originality, it could have been a good book.