Review: Storm Glass

Storm Glass by Jeff Wheeler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Storm Glass might be the most unimpressive book I've ever read. It's not bad in any real way, it just doesn't excite me even in the faintest sense of the term. I can't even say it's boring as I was able to finish it without feeling I wasted the last week. Everything was just so middle of the road and clumpy that it was just good enough to read, but not good enough to like.

If you're into world-building porn, this book might be your jam. Because the only thing that had the slightest sense of creative investment was the world-building. The prose and characters were too weak for the case to be otherwise. I'll give the book props for laying out the world without creating a sense of being in the middle of an exposition dump. The problem, however, is that there is so little investment into why any of it matters. A great big world, with lots of moving parts, loses its sense of wonder when it's restricted behind the narrative's limited scope. The book never crosses the threshold of building a world and making the reader care about it.

In other news, the social-political intrigue is too petty and small scale to maintain interest. Too much of the book plays out like a super long episode of 'Downton Abbey'. Just without Maggie Smith. Or any interesting characters for that matter. The dynamics are just too cliched and none it really matters by the everything-fits-neatly-in-a-box ending.

Mild spoiler. This book is really about poverty. Why is it about poverty? Reasons. Is it a good commentary about poverty? No. No, it isn't. I could probably write a five million world essay as to why, but here's the gist: For there to be an effective commentary on an issue, there needs to be an underlining real-world connection and understanding of the institutionalized aspects of the problem. At no time did I feel like the author was holding up a mirror to the issues the book cared about. Not unless it was a funhouse mirror.

I've read books before where nothing really happens. The industry normally calls those books award winners. However, this isn't the case for Storm Glass. Stuff happens. Lots of stuff. Most of it is explaining something about the world, but at least it's something. But from the beginning, to middle, to end, there doesn't seem to be any sense of highs or lows. It's just a very monotone pace throughout. Like a decently worded output of white noise. It's not bad. It's just there.

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