At this point, I’m pretty much the personal reviewer of Marie Howalt’s books. But hey, at least I’m enjoying myself! You can check it out by following this link to Spaceboy Books! Now let’s get to the book review!

Background and Lores

A sequel to The Stellar Snow Job, Assassins & Olympians follows the crew of the Colibri and Colibri Investigations – a team of half mercenary, half detectives, half whatever, and half travel guide publisher. Yeah, I know, they have a very wide set of skills. They will find you, and they will give you holiday advice.

In all seriousness, the greater galaxy built by Howalt continues to be interesting, and the two main planets the story takes place on have some very fun gimmicks going for them. But the book doesn’t focus on the interesting backgrounds that were exposited, and have events take place in perhaps the most mundane of their locations.

There’s a very short scene in a chapter where we visit the equivalent of a neighbourhood store, and it instantly became my favourite part, as I actually get to see the culture and society of an otherwise amazing exposition taking place throughout the background. If there were more scenes like that throughout the book, the scoring would be over the moon.

I really enjoyed the between chapters excerpts from (mostly) Alannah’s travel guides. They were a great way to paint the background of the worlds and characters we visit with very little exposition, and added expansion to Alannah’s character through her writing. Still, it can lose some hype in the main chapters as it just jarringly shows how mundane the sections of the planets we as the readers are exploring are compared to the planet as a whole.

(16/20)

Plot

The main plot isn’t world changing. We get an assassination attempt gone wrong and the hunt to find the mastermind. And like the previous book, this turned into more of an “adventure” than an “investigation”. If you go into the book thinking of Colibri Investigation as more of an adventuring party, it’s a perfectly fun plot and enjoyable run.

We get far deeper into the characters than the previous book, with a lot of quiet moments to think and interact. Those interactions are incredibly well written from each character’s point of view. Alannah focuses on people’s reactions, while Eddie’s solo moment seeks quiet from the storm. And Richard, in line with his military background, is filled with planning and thinking.

The story is missing some development for the villain and their world, which, while fine, really doesn’t fully utilize the intriguing settings that the story takes place in, especially since they are on the book’s title.

(16/20)

Characters

The new and returning secondary characters are also interesting, in the ‘cloak and dagger’ world of mysterious spies and assassins way. Howalt knows exactly what button to push for which character, and more importantly what not to, to maintain their mystique.

But the one new main character I want to focus on is Kierran, who is written as both an anti-hero and anti-villain. What an incredible feat. Even though the character was only introduced in this book, we get to see him interact with the entire cast, both directly and indirectly, and the relationships set-up between them all evolved so naturally and seamlessly it’s almost terrifying.

His play between the other three established main characters almost perfectly builds their growth interdependently. As a writer myself, I find that quite intense. Very rarely can you introduce a character that can so easily bring out the best in the entire cast. There are relationships, chemistry, and personalities to think of. If you’re writing a realistic character, you don’t usually get to fit all those holes neatly and have a compelling interaction.

So what does it say of Howalt that Kierran came about and successfully did that? I don’t know. I’m scared. Hold me.

(20/20)

Flow and Pacing

Smooth as butter, is how I’d describe the plot. We go from scene to scene and jump from character to character so naturally, you’d think it was all a single take in a movie.

Honestly, there weren’t as many mistakes as I thought there’d be, even though I was given a pre-final copy. 10 minor errors and 1 major flow break, and that was it. I’m sure most of the errors will be cleaned up in the final draft.

(18/20)

Themes

I’d like to think the main character of this book is Kierran, as he carried the majority of the story’s moral conflict.

The thematic questions of ethics and choices aren’t anything that changes academia as we know them. They’re very entry level philosophy, to be honest, though they were executed well. I understand the difficulty of fitting a large peg in a small hole, and a novella isn’t a great place to ask big questions, but I would have liked to see more thematic mirrors between the planets we visit and the characters.

So far, the backgrounds are mainly aesthetic. They look nice, but aren’t very relevant to the story, and the same plot could probably happen anywhere else with very little change in the overall planning of the book. It would be nicer as well to explore hypotheticals that could only happen in such a futuristic world, like in the last book.

(15/20)

CONCLUSION

A little light reading never killed anyone, though I’ll admit my back isn’t what it’s supposed to be. It hurts if I sit still too long. And I’m only 31, Jesus. But a light read and a fun adventure is what Assassins & Olympians is (I just realized there’s only 1 assassin and 1 Olympian throughout the story).

Sorry, I got sidetracked.

Assassins & Olympians is a right romp, filled with energetic characters in a galaxy that breathes, and a worthy sequel to its predecessor. I’m a little terrified of Howalt’s ability to write characters now, and I can only imagine the powerful brain drugs they must be taking to enhance their writing to such a level.

Assassins & Olympians is currently 85% up the mountain of approval!