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The Steel Seraglio (2012)

by Mike Carey(Favorite Author)

4.17 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1926851536 (ISBN13: 9781926851532)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

ChiZine Publications

review 1: I am a huge Mike Carey fan and a fan of the Arabian Nights setup, but this book petered out on me. Yes, there are a lot of strong diverse female characters. There are whole chapters of brilliant setting & storytelling. But ultimately the overarching plot became very predictable and boring. "Oh I guess they're going to take the city back and be successful. I bet the kid is going to go from complete spoiled brat to entitled violent man-child." Because of the shifts in character focus, I never felt invested enough in the characters to care about what happened to them next. I also found the thinly disguised Islam references very jarring. Either have the religion be Islam or figure out something unique. As it was, it felt poorly appropriative. Ultimately I gave up on the book o... moreut of frustration.
review 2: This was a bit of an unusual book. I enjoyed parts of it, but it easily could have ended after Book One. (I completely lost interest in the last fourth of the book.) Also, modern colloquialisms would pop up here and there, which felt jarring in a book meant to emulate One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. I realize one of the characters has foresight and can apparently see far enough into the future to understand modern English dialect, but (for example) having a character based in ancient Arabia refer to "when &@$# hits the fan" really takes one out of the story. less

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