#daniel mcdaniel

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Luminocity: Grieving Gold - Nele-Diel

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Review: Grieving Gold by Daniel McDaniel (The Luminocity Seed #1)

In a new and refreshing take on the genre, Grieving Gold is an all new epic fantasy with notes of sci-fi and horror set an ancient Aztec inspired world. It offers a complex and intriguing blood magic system and a world of darkness and shadow with the sun gods high above and creatures that live below in the dark.

The book has many POVs (which tbh can make things confusing and prevents readers from really connecting with the characters), but the true main character of the story is Lax, who is our classic lovable thief, but with the power of lies. I take into consideration the fact that this is the first book in a potentially very long series, so a lot of the book is setup, letting us get to know the characters and learn about the world. In my opinion, first books are generally not the strongest in a series due to all the worldbuilding needed, so I can forgive the book for being a little confusing and hard to get into at times.

While this is an intriguing premise, and certainly show promise for the future of the series, the execution and writing hold the story back from being truly brilliant. There were some glaring mistakes in the writing, even in the first chapter, which made it made it difficult to really get into the story. The author seems to really, really love using similes (particularly describing the buildings as being "like fingers" which felt weird) which took me out of the story every time. There were points where similes were being used in nearly every paragraph. This made it difficult to read, despite my interest in the world and characters.

Rating: 3 stars. Fantastic worldbuilding, held back by the writing

*Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of Grieving Gold in exchange for an honest review*

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Grieving Gold - Daniel McDaniel

I received this book as part of a promotional giveaway

I got this ARC from NetGalley, and one of my monthly goals is to read a book I got for free, so this was my February read!

Or, at least, I tried to make it my February read. I really did persevere with this, but after nearly two weeks, I was forced to give up at 71%.

The plot was actually ok, it seemed to have a well thought out magic system, and there was a lot going on. It was just not very well written.

The dialogue, especially, was so stilted and unnatural, that it was just kind of painful to read? There was a serious lack of contractions in the dialogue, even when the language was quite chatty. Sometimes you need an "I'm" or a "don't" or a "haven't".

There was also an over-abundance of narrators. This can be used really effectively, but in this case, it just didn't work. Because there were so many different perspectives, we got a lot more information than any single character was aware of. Which meant that anything held back from the reader was very obviously held back by the author for impact. Which kind of broke the fantasy, for me. With fantasy, you want to forget that you're being told a story, and instead just live the book.

And although some of the characters were engaging, and their stories were interesting, a lot of them were just a bit boring, and seemed only there for backstory.

This was marketed as being perfect for fans of Brandon Sanderson, which I totally get, because it was the exact kind of complex plot, high fantasy that he writes. It just wasn't well executed.

I almost wanted to know what happened at the end, but not enough to finish the book. And definitely not enough to read the rest of the series.

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Luminocity by Daniel McDaniel

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Endless Equinox (1 Feb. 2024)Language ‏ : ‎ EnglishPaperback ‏ : ‎ 450 pagesISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 615018885XISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-6150188850 Book Blurb Find your strength in the light, or lose your chains in the darkness. Three sun gods bathe the city of legends, Luminocity, in their blessed light. The city stands on the decaying ruins of an ancient civilization. Skeletal skyscrapers guard…

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