The Vagrant by Peter Newman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Vagrant by Peter Newman is a dystopian novel with sci fi and fantasy elements. It follows the story of a mute protagonist as he journeys across the wastelands with a goat and a baby (at least for the duration of my read).
The Cover: I love the cover to this book. It has great artwork and it tells me straight away that this is a fantasy novel. I even get the feeling it is set in a dystopian world and picture is a great representation of the main character.
The Good Stuff: The story was interesting, I would like to know how it unfolds – just not enough to push me through author’s prose. I liked the wasteland, the author has built a believable world, ravished by ‘demons’, where life fights to survive among the new hosts. The protagonist, while he did not talk up to the point where I stopped reading, is interesting. I find I want to know more of his story, where he came from and why he is there. I have some ideas based on the story so far, but nothing was given away by the author to the point I read up to, merely hinted at.
The bad stuff: I really didn’t like the author’s style of writing. There were lots of short sentences, to the point where the story was confusing or didn’t make sense to me in places. I didn’t manage to finish this book, I loaned it from my local library, struggled through to page 169 and when the 3rd renewal came up, figured if I haven’t gotten into the book by now, it was not worth the trouble renewing again.
I think that if you are okay with the author’s writing style, you will enjoy this book. The story is interesting, the world is believable and there is variety in the characters. Personally, I couldn’t get past the author’s style. I don’t think this was a bad book, just not a book for me. I’m only giving it 2 out of 5 golden bookmarks.
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Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here.
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