Miss Brandymoon’s Device: mixed reviews of a garbage fire

 

Meh, but not great.. And yet I might read a sequel?

Finished Rune Skelley’s “Miss Brandymoon’s Device”

Started reading sometime at the beginning of summer. I feel a little duped to be honest. It was interesting enough to finish, but hit points where it was easy to peel away and nearly shelve it.

It was kind of a garbage fire. The beginning contained kinda interesting story telling and interesting characters, who were then interrupted and diminished a fair amount by cult and alien nonsense.. I enjoyed the writing style of the first half pretty evenly, then shit went sideways with a massive leap of plot with no warning or foreshadowing.

Biggest issue and the likely reason readers should avoid this novel… a VERY problematic commodification of a woman, her body parts, her memory and conciousness. The female lead for the story was strong and quickly devolved to a plot tool that two dudes tug o warred over very grossly..

I would consider reading book 2 because this novel did have some interesting scifi thoughts but if it continues the same problems of disempowerment I would skip finishing it.

Side note: I am annoyed by books that rely on sub titles to get marketing attention. This book was labeled ‘A novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lavalamp.’ To be clear, this book contained a fair amount of problematic sex, some loose ill-defined and pointless nanotech, a talking lavalamp that served zero plot value…