C.E. Clayton, official author website
  • Home
  • About the Author
    • C.E. Clayton
    • Requesting Book Reviews
  • List of Works
    • Starfish Ink >
      • Eerden Novels
      • Eerden Novellas
    • The Monster of Selkirk Series
    • Freebies and collectors editions for TMOS
    • Other Published Works
  • Musings
    • What I'm Reading
    • Blog
  • Newsletter
    • Giveaways
    • Clayton's Super Friends
  • Members Only

What I'm Reading


Want to get more reviews and bookish giveaways? Be sure to sign up for my Book Club!
Sign up for the Book Club now!

Parting Shadows (Toccata System Book 1); Kate Sheeran Swed

11/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
“Parting Shadows” gets its initial spark from the character Estella Havisham from “Great Expectations”, however, as someone who fails at reading classics, I can confidently say you don’t have to have read Dickinson’s novel in order to understand, or appreciate, the world that Swed presents. Ultimately, this is a story about the layers of a person, of nurture vs. nature almost, and overcoming what you were raised to do in order to live the life of your choosing—without a murderous AI in your head. Which Astra has. Did I forget to mention that? Well, there it is: Astra was raised by an advanced AI—almost think Hal from 2001 Space Odyssey—all because a human man used her programming against her, he manipulated her, had her heart broken, and then abandoned her. I may not have read “Great Expectations” but I’ve seen things like the Terminator often enough to know you don’t do that sort of thing to an advanced AI and expect things to just be swell after. In retaliation, the AI adopts a daughter, Astra, and from the moment Astra is able to walk practically, her AI mother is training her to be heartless, to pick out a person’s mental weaknesses, and to destroy the man who hurt her most.

This novella is an easy world to get into, it’s not all that different from other far-future sci-fi worlds, but that wasn’t a detriment to the story at all, and in fact helped as the author has limited page real estate with which to world build. Instead, we get to see the perspectives of both Astra and her AI mother, allowing us to see what has shaped them, what traumas have imprinted on them, and how they choose to fight back. For being such a short book, Swed is able to craft wonderfully layered characters that, even when they are doing bad things, or are, in fact, the bad guy, you feel for them, you understand them, and you kind of want to sit down and hug them. The character arcs of the main characters are well done, and it sets up a fascinating world and trilogy to come.

I think my one issue is that the book felt short at times, which, yes, I know, it’s a novella. But I mean more that I had a hard time envisioning some of the characters or the world, things seemed to jump or move rather too quickly at times for me to feel the tension or hurt I believe the author was going for. Now, this could be because I tend to like really intense and elaborate world building and that’s just my natural preference, or because I haven’t read “Great Expectations” and therefore some of the things that were glossed over I would have understood better had I read that novel. I don’t know, and honestly, it wasn’t that big of a deal for it to impact my enjoyment of this amazing new series, but it was there.

This novella read like the first episode in a limited run space series on Netflix. It’s fast paced, easy to follow and get into, its main cast is engaging, and the fact that they are all flawed characters? Wonderful! I love flawed main characters! There is a touch of romance as well that I am excited about seeing more of in the next books. I may have won this book in a giveaway, but that doesn’t impact how much I enjoyed reading this before bed for the past week (I’m a slow reader), so of course it gets 5 stars from yours truly. I can’t wait to read the next book, too. It’s based on The Phantom of the Opera—my all-time favorite!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Click the book images to see them on Amazon!

    C.E.'s bookshelf: currently-reading

    The Night Bird
    The Night Bird
    by Brian Freeman
    tagged: currently-reading
    A Boy From the Chesapeake
    A Boy From the Chesapeake
    by Larry Roszkowiak
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading
    The Mine
    The Mine
    by John A. Heldt
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading
    September Sky
    September Sky
    by John A. Heldt
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading
    Made Men: An Urban Fantasy Novel
    Made Men: An Urban Fantasy Novel
    by Seth Creamer
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading

    goodreads.com

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Action
    Adventure
    Anthologies
    Christian
    Contemporary
    Crime Drama
    DNF
    Dystopian
    Fantasy
    Fiction
    Graphic Novel
    Historical Fiction
    Horror
    Humor
    Literature
    Memoir
    Middle Grade
    Mystery
    Mythology
    New Adult
    Non Fiction
    Non-Fiction
    Novella
    Paranormal
    Poetry
    Romance
    Science Ficton
    Short Stories
    Steampunk
    Thriller
    True Crime
    Urban Fantasy
    Western
    Young Adult
    Zombie

    Upcoming reviews

    The Squire's Tale
    Division of the Marked
    Night Watch
    Hatter
    The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
    The Blade Itself
    Dealing with Dragons
    Harbinger
    Over Sea, Under Stone
    Neverwhere
    Demon's Prize
    Terra Obscura: Volume 1
    The Thousand Names
    The Name of the Wind
    The Thorn of Emberlain
    The Time Traveler's Wife
    Babayaga
    The Goldfinch
    Wake Up, Sir!
    Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood

Support

Privacy Policy
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About the Author
    • C.E. Clayton
    • Requesting Book Reviews
  • List of Works
    • Starfish Ink >
      • Eerden Novels
      • Eerden Novellas
    • The Monster of Selkirk Series
    • Freebies and collectors editions for TMOS
    • Other Published Works
  • Musings
    • What I'm Reading
    • Blog
  • Newsletter
    • Giveaways
    • Clayton's Super Friends
  • Members Only