Witch Watch

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 11:07:50 GMT

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13501177-the-witch-watch

I can't remember what I ever reviewed and what I didn't. Did I ever write about Witch Watch before? It's Shamus Young's self-published novel. Shamus is famous for Dm of the Rings, a "what if LOTR was a roleplaying game by an overly-railroading GM" http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612 and his series of posts about growing up, his life, and difficulties with the school system.

Good things about Witch Watch:

* Urban fantasy in victorian london
* Long-suffering protagonist who never wanted to think hard, but is accedentally resurrected by cultists intending to resurrect their necromancer master
* A smattering of effective deadpan humour
* Effective female character who gets on with things
* Thoughtful world-building of magic system, a more traditional, "can only do magic once you do a bunch of prep" system, and plot depending on magic system

Things that bugged me:

* The editing standard is pretty good, I'd say on average better than most first professionally published novels, but there's a few bits that just felt a bit unfinished and really bugged me, viz:
* One or two minor scene connections when a bit more set-up in advance would have made it feel necessary rather than contrived, or clear rather than muddled.
* The overall plot works pretty well, but I felt like one more editing pass could have really made it pop, made it exceptional rather than good.
* The characters occasionally relapse into lamenting how incompressible people are, which I have a lot of sympathy with, and is very Shamus, but sometimes feels out of place for that character.

But I'd really like to read more by him, so I'm drawing people's attention to this one in case it helps :)

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jack

Witch Watch