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Book Review of When Gravity Fails (Marid Audrian, Bk 1)

When Gravity Fails (Marid Audrian, Bk 1)
reviewed on + 77 more book reviews


When Gravity Fails is set in a world where the great nations have collapsed back into smaller kingdoms and holdings. There's technology - implants that give you knowledge while they're, like how to speak a language, others that give you the personality of the person the implant is copied from. Medical technology is advanced as well. There are a lot of post-op transgender people in the book. The feel is dark and gritty - almost noir. It's made clear that the part of the world we're seeing is a slum. I love that this book is set in the Middle East somewhere. It's nice to see books writing from a non-European culture viewpoint.

That said, the feel of the book was really all that was going on. At 25% into the book I couldn't really tell you what the plot was. There were various people dead, but as I said, this book is set in a slum, and the deaths are presented as business as usual. The main character certainly doesn't have any goal in mind beyond paying his rent. He seemed a somewhat decent guy, but I wasn't given anything that made me interested in knowing more about him, and with nothing in the plot drawing me in, I put it down and moved onto something that did catch my interest.