I recently had an online conversation with some fellow professional editors, worrying about how to help a writer who had two separate points of view in his book, both of them first person. In other words, the story was all in “I” pronoun, but in alternating chapters the “I” switched to the other person. One thing we agreed on: it’s a very hard trick to accomplish, for many reasons.
And here I am given a book that uses about seven different first-person POVs and doesn’t even follow the rules. Yes, rules. Main rule of First Person POV: you can’t see your own face.
For example, “A flash of rage twisted my face for a split second.” Likewise, “I…smiled back, though it didn’t quite reach my eyes.” Very disorienting for the reader.
It’s like watching a movie where most of the dialogue is made up of voice-overs.
As far as plotline, the opening chapter flows nicely and has great action and emotion. The second chapter doesn’t fare so well, because of the large amount of information about the new setting that is dumped on us. And then the diverse settings and genres start piling up: clones, hi-tech with computers, old-fashioned magic, speaking animals, spaceships, cybernetics, an Ethereal Beast and I think time travel, but I’m not sure. In his quest to write something fresh and unique the author has only created a patchwork quilt that just doesn’t communicate to the reader.
This author is a very creative and imaginative artist who has run wild across every genre, style, and device in several genres, without realizing that those divisions exist to give the reader a chance to keep track of what is going on.
Like all computer-based research, AI comes up with too much information and gives us too many choices. In novel writing there is no substitute for the human ability to empathize with the reader and know whether we are communicating or not. If this is what AI creates, real authors don’t have much to worry about for some time to come.
For the next book in the series, the author is advised to have fewer characters and stick to two or three main settings and genres. And don’t use ChatGPT as a source.
This book might appeal to YA video game fans.
Two stars
This review was originally published at Reedsy Discovery.
