Before the Fall: Book Review

Before the Fall (A Rojan Dizon Novel) is the second in the series written by Francis Knight. So far there are three. See my review for Fade to Black

The blurb: The city rises upwards not across. Those at the bottom, as you might imagine are rather downtrodden and rarely see light, or much of it anyway. Those at the top, in the clouds, are living on cloud nine; that would by the Ministry. You do Not cross the Ministry. Rojan freed the Downsiders from the Pit they resided in and when doing so he doomed the city to starvation unless he can do something about it. He may act like he doesn’t care about much but people are beginning to crack the code about him. Pain mages have been made legal in order to get the city running; for now in a secret lab because people have been taught for years they are evil.

Why I picked up this book: This one I picked up because I have the first one. I picked the trilogy of them all together.

What is good about the novel: It is still a gritty novel to read. It is still  a world of corruption piled on top of corruption. A world of poverty and crime. Now a city starving and on the brink of violence with the Ministry conspiring for all their own agendas.  The hero has some nice natural flaws to him but he is a good person underneath all that rough and bluster of trying not to be. I liked the characters. They are well constructed. They make mistakes that make sense. Mistakes of the heart and of the soul. So I still enjoyed that world and the characters.

What is not so good about this novel: What I didn’t like about this novel is that the plot was rather predictable. There are things occurring and you know what is going to happen long before it does. You know who the ultimate villains will be, although some minor surprises mixed in. Some things that should be hidden in action and events are not, such that we know they will be of importance later, like the end in a sticky situation and that indeed happens. This was just too predictable for me to really enjoy. There were a few times I just wanted to put it down and read something else between it.

I rank it a 4/10