Roger Levy Spins a Complicated Tale
Two things before I begin. First, I apologize for this being a bit after the publication date. I was dealing with a sinus infection, and not up to reading much. Second, I received this as an uncorrected bound proof from Titan Books. All opinions contained herein are my own, however…and you guys know how opinionated I am.
At 615 pages, Roger Levy’s The Rig is not a book to dive into lightly. While I occasionally found myself “rooting for” one or another of the characters, all are pretty flawed. None are wholly likable, but there are books where that happens, and it’s never been a deal-breaker for me.
The book starts slowly, establishing the friendship between the two main characters, and the world they are living on. It’s not a pretty society, either, because it follows a pretty rigid interpretation of the Bible. At any rate, the story follows the two characters and several other plotlines. One thing that kept me reading, in fact, was waiting to see how Mr. Levy was going to tie all the different stories together. And, when he finally did so, it was only partially in ways I had expected.
For all that, the book is well-written, and once I had gotten past the slowness at the beginning, I didn’t want to put it down – not for dinner, not for some work I needed to do, not even to go to bed.
It’s doesn’t fit neatly into military SF or horror, but I think it will appeal to readers thereof. It was definitely worth the time and effort to read it.
Not Just Another Grouchy Grammarian 