Review: The Censor's Hand

The Censor's Hand by A.M. Steiner
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I stopped reading this twice.

The first time, at maybe 15%, I went off and read several other books. I didn't feel much desire to go back to it, but I wasn't hating it, so I gave it another go. In part, I wanted to figure out why it was that I didn't care about any of the characters, and give the author a chance to change that.

I got to 64% before I realised why it was that I didn't care, and at that point I stopped.

The narrative follows three loosely connected main characters. One is in financial trouble and about to lose the family business, which would mean his ill mother, his wife, and their baby would have no means of support. You'd think this would make me care about him, but he's so hapless and hopeless, and makes such bad decisions, that I never did. His family seems to be more of a constraint on his actions than people that he cares deeply about.

The second is the first character's brother. He's a competent fighter, and ambitious to clean up their old neighbourhood by becoming a Censor, a kind of lawman. Again, a laudable goal, and you'd think I'd care, but he fumbles around, not showing a lot of focus or competence, serving an obviously heartless organization which considers him a tool, and not a particularly valuable one.

The third character is a woman student - the first woman student - at a magical college, at which the second character is also a student as part of an undercover investigation. They become involved. So why didn't I care about a woman who's making her way in a man's world by being better than the male students? Normally I'd love that story, but this character is so nakedly ambitious, and so uncaring about anyone other than herself, that I had no sympathy for her goals.

And that was the overall problem, I think. Nobody combined competence with idealism; everyone was missing one or the other, and nobody had any noticeable compassion or empathy. Faced with a cast of characters who didn't much care about each other, I didn't care about them either, and stopped reading with no regrets.

I received a review copy via Netgalley.

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