Objects in Motion – InadvisablyCompelled

Strong plot, weak protagonist

I started reading OiM because it is by the author of the excellent Blue Core. It has a lot in common with his other books - especially a main character who advances by figuring out the rules and applying them well.

So why was Blue Core a splurge read while I stopped reading OiM near the end of the first book? I never started caring about the main character. He is intelligent, has a good bag of tricks, and has principles a reader can appreciate - but that pretty-much sums up what I know about him.

The plot is more arbitrary in OiM than in BC. The protagonist’s struggles in OiM are kicked off by a series of plot devices; the wrong things keep happening at the wrong time. In BC there is more of a sense that the protagonist is growing into a struggle he was always going to have to face.

Objects in Motion could have been stronger if it had put more emphasis on the premise that appears in the book’s blurb - a protagonist who has minor brute-force powers but proceeds as a thinker. We find out fairly quickly that his powers are anything but minor and anything but brute force. To be fair, we are given to understand that any powers can be major if they are approached with finesse.