Acquire Encrypted (Forgotten Ages/Encrypted, #1) Showcased By Lindsay Buroker Rendered As Manuscript
last night as it was far too hot to sleep,
Overall a fun read in spite of the phenomenal body count, racketing along at a crashing pace from start to finish, not just action but romance between enemies, one of my favorite story elements.
I do wish it had been proofed better grammar and spelling errors force me out of the immersion but that's a toughie that we all face these days.
There was also one sharp disappointment I guess because of all the wishfulfillment tropes that Buroker embraces, I assumed that all my favorite characters would make it fine after their heroism, but no, one of my least favorite tropes did turn up .
However, in spite of that, the remainder rose to a tense, interesting climax I think I would have liked more about a certain decision, as it seemed too easy, observed from the outside.
An added POV might have cleared that up, It does leave a mystery for future books, which I intend to read, I am very much invested in what happens next! A typical Buroker, I'd say, Which means interesting worldbuilding set in the same universe as the Emperor's Edge series, great rich characters, funny banter, a romance a bit of the cleaner side, but with delicious tension.
I enjoyed it a lot and will read the other two in the series as well,/A
Lindsay Buroker is another new to me author, I enjoyed this introduction to her writing very much, Her heroine is a nerdy type who has a lioness lurking inside her and it was fun to see her coming out to play, The world she built seemed to have a lot of aspects of our world but it was pretty different, The three main societies military based, science based, and magic based gave lots of room for an interesting story to grow, Looking forward to reading more by this author, This was the first of Lindsay's books I've read, and from what I've seen with Encrypted, it will not be the last!
I started reading this book while at home sick and I spent then next few hours lost in the world that Lindsay created.
It is so captivating, it will leave you wishing you could enter the pages yourself and explore outside the bounds of the story with Tikaya and Rias.
The cryptography was initially what drew me to this book, but I was sold completely when I read the description and found that the lead was a 'not your average' heroin.
Couple that with a bit of romance, magic and action and you find yourself reading a sure winner,
Overall, the plot was well polished and the characters were believable and fully formed, bringing a sense of familiarity to the reader and a desire to spend much longer delved into this incredible world.
I strongly suggest you buy this book and enjoy it as much as I did,
Thank you so much Lindsay! I absolutely LOVED this book, I devoured it in a day and completely ignored everyone around me in order to finish it, It was such a unique idea to me and I completely loved the great mix of Science fiction with a love story, It was wonderful. Definitely recommend this one. TLDR: Fantastic adventure romance novel with an "Indiana Jones" feel to it, Original and well thought out scifi, fantasy, and steampunk elements blended together to form a fun and interesting story world,
Romance: The romance in this novel was very similar to that in Shards of Honor, which is a good thing, Aral Vorkosigan and Admiral Starcrest are very similar, and so are Dr, Naismith and Professor Tikaya. It was charming, if maybe a tad juvenile at first, but I was cheering for both of the protagonists in to make it, Like Shards of Honor, the romantic subplot was predictable, but a tragic ending just would not have fit, No complaints here.
World building: This was my favorite part of the book, Lindsay really came up with some interesting story elements, Parts of it evoked kind of a "Phantasm" feel, Others, I was feeling "John Carpenter's The Thing", The fantasy elements were really more "psionic" type powers than what I'd call magic, but this was well done, Overall, I was very happy with the nice blend of scifi, fantasy, and horror elements that made up the world,
Story: Think "Indiana Jones" meets "Phantasm" meets "Aliens", and you will have the spirit of it, The ending definitely hinted at more of this, Everything moved along at a satisfying pace, and I didn't perceive any dead spots,
Writing: The writing flowed nicely, and was not too dense, or too light for an adventure novel, Lindsay did a great job adding the horror elements, without which I think the book would have been way too light, The horror elements were quite good, too, Genre blending is one of my favorite things about books, and Scifi / horror / fantasy is my favorite, and it was done well here,
Overall: I highly recommend this to YA and Adult audiences, The horror elements were somewhat graphic, but it's nothing kids today haven't come across a thousand times, Great fun, and I will be reading the sequel at some point, I was originally drawn by the cover, After only a cursory glance at the description, I bought the book knowing only that the protagonist was kidnapped from her parents home for her gift with languages to decipher cryptic codes.
The whole time, I thought it was a YA and that's really what made me want to read it check my shelves, I'm all about YA but it wasn't until the firstchapters I realized I was WAY off and read the actual descriptions and reviews.
To my surprise, I was pleasantly surprised to have stumbled on to my first adult Fantasy/SciFi book, Being a recent fan of The Sword and Laser on Goodreads and listening to them describe these genre books,
I've been meaning to read one, and I could not have picked a better one to start off with!
Tikaya DOES get kidnapped from her parents home, but she is ayear old woman whose fiancée was killed in this war a nation known as Turgonians started, which meant to take over her islands.
During the war she was recruited to decipher war messages against them and was a key part in their stalemate and failure, After the war and the death of her fiancée, she goes back to the island, but can't make herself go back to the polytechnic school she used to work at and instead stays helping her family in their rum business.
In her land and to the Nurians the other nation that she helped she is a hero, but to the Turgonians, she is evil incarnate and public enemy.
When they kidnap her, everyone treats her like crap, she is hated by everyone of the Turgonian marines and the captain and if not for a fellow prisoner speaking up and distracting them, would have been raped and abused on her first night on their ship.
The captain is kind of an idiot, but he is determined to guarantee her compliance to translate these weird ciphers and tells her that although her fate is decided for her war crimes against The Empire, her compliance will keep her family alive.
With no choice, Tikaya starts trying to figure out the new language, One night, working on trying to make an ally of her fellow prisoner, she realizes he has seen the ciphers before, The integer level rises. Can she trust this guy with no name except for NumberWhat are the ciphers and what language is it they are trying to get her to unlock Worse yet, why do they want it and why do her previous allies, the Nurians, wants her dead because of it
I thought the book would get too SciFiey and kinda lose my interest, but it didn't.
It had action and adventure, mystery and puzzles, even romance which totally won me over, And the best part was that it was written so well, I could almost picture everything like movie scenes, Best movie I imagined in quite a while!
Would love to read more from this author and definately recommend to those wanting to test the waters in this genre.
I hope there is a spin off where we get to know more about Sicarius, A baby faced assassin is just to good to ignore, .