I had difficulties reading Blind Rage, though it might appeal to other people. This review is based on the prologue and the first five chapters, which is all that I have read since, according to my profile, that is the maximum number of chapters I’ll read in order to give a story a chance.
I found the beginning to be too full of cliches for my liking. One of the protagonists, Jobe, is telepathic, a halfing (the concept of which wasn’t exactly explained very well), can heal faster than normal, and he is "insane" in that he has several personalities going on. And his girlfriend dumped him because of his "past". All this perhaps would not be a problem, except that it is not written convincingly. Instead of sounding like a complex character, he simply sounds like someone dangerously close to suffering Special Child Syndrome.
Overall, the feel of the story is very awkward. There’s a lot of telling instead of showing going on which negatively affects the story in a variety of ways:
Since most of the story is told, instead of shown, the world building leaves something to be desired. As a reader, I don’t really have a feel for the kind of world or environment in which this story is taking place, though it does seem to include a supernatural mish mash of creatures. The questions I kept asking myself as I was reading were, does the general populace know about these supernatural/fantastical creatures and if they do then what are their general attitudes towards them—neither of these questions were answered satisfactorily in the first five chapters.
When the story is told, the characters of the narrative are distanced from the reader. The readers don’t feel what the characters feel, or cry when they cry, or suffer when they suffer. Because of the distance, the characters hold no emotional impact and therefore blunt the motivation to continue reading. Also, in a broadly scoped narrative like this, it makes it difficult to tell the characters apart, which is inconvenient when there are so many of them.
I think Blind Rage has undeveloped potential. There are some interesting concepts that could be very nicely developed with more improved writing. If you prefer more plot orientated stories, this may be the story for you.
3 of 4 members found this review helpful.
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