Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

I was recommended this, a couple times, and I went into this hoping it would fare better than most self-published books.   Not so much.   It's also really weird - there are some things Kilgore does really well, and those are the harder things.   World building, for example, is excellent, while the grammar and editing jobs are... botched.  Grammar?   Cutting out unnecessary scenes, or sentences, or paragraphs, or pages?   Someone can point that out to you, and you can make easy, quick fixes.   World building?   Not so much.   It's hard to fix something when there's a deep issue with that, and the world here is full, rich, and makes sense.  The world building is great, and one of the main characters is a bit of a Mary Sue - she can do no wrong, even when she kills people, and everyone good loves her, and she has these cray-cray powers of her special people that are so super secret like no one knows about them - but overall, I enjoyed most of the characters, particularly Ethan.  

(Ethan is a Mecha, but more advanced than most of them.   Also, completely blue, including mentions of his blue ass.   Poor, guy, though.   Going through life with blue balls?   I'm betting there is a constant parade of blue ball jokes in his life...)   Also, it reminded me of this: 

Especially since Ethan is super tall.  Regardless, more sexy, because machine!   I did, however, hate that he fell in love with the Mary Sue, the one who everyone loves even though she keeps breaking the rules of her people - rules set in place to keep everyone around her safe.   And yeah, the rules suck, but they are there for a reason.   If her people aren't going to come out and live in the open, they kinda need those rules.   The way she flaunted them, and put people in danger, the way she kinda just seemed to throw tantrums?   Do not like Orynn.

Yeah, she's basically mind controlling people into doing this.   Hates her.   Hates a lot of stuff about her story line, though.  

The computer has an AI, which is not nearly as hot as Ethan, mostly because he's autonomous, and screws a ton of humans - yay!  robot/human relations! - and the AI is... neither autonomous nor choosing to sexually pleasure humans, mostly because it doesn't have a choice in anything.   (Stupid organics, using AIs as their slaves.   *grumbles, grumbles*)

The storyline became more and more addictive as I read.   However, there are some issues.   Like this did not in any way need to be close to four hundred pages.   She could have cut down on soooo much and told a far better story.   Or the weird translation thing where she would use Vesparian words, and created a language, then translate them into English in italics.   It kinda threw me off.   Why not just use italics for Vesparian or let us guess the meanings based on the words?   Either would have been more effective for me than the clusterfuck that solution created. 

Anyway, here, have some examples of what I did not like grammar-wise when it came to this book: 

"Unlike the dreams of Breathers, his thought processes were, what he liked to boast, much more logical."

And here's what this sentence would like cleaned up: "Unlike the Breathers who dreamed, he boasted that his thought processors were much more logical."  

"She owed Jhonis more than a few favors to give his nephew another chance, although it may be the last one she would be able to give him."

Cleaned up: "She owed Jhonis whatever help she could give his nephew, although it might be Hank's last chance."

"She was uniquely odd in every action, and even the way she spoke without using contractions had started to grow in him a fondness for her."

Cleaned up: "She was uniquely odd, and even her manner of speaking made him more fond of her."

"As in, I can't sleep with those dumb twats because they aren't you, Tara."   Now, given, Hank thinks this, not says it out loud, but it's a little misogynistic given how much he respects women, how much autonomy he gives them, and how he adores Tara for being strong and strong-willed and clever.   It's just... odd.   And he calls them dumb twats twice.   It also makes me a little less fond of Hank's character, and a little more wary of him.

"...the shadow of Tara fell over her..."

This happens all the time.   "The voice of Tara..."   The x of y.   What's wrong with using Tara's voice?   Tara's shadow fell over her would be much neater!

"When Ethan had he'd her arm the last time and looked down at her as the T'jaros ripped each other to pieces, she had seen no hint of disgust in them."

Look closely at that sentence.   Where does the them come from?   Eyes, clearly, but there is no mention of eyes.   Whut?

"...but her spirit craved loudly for more."

How does a spirit crave loudly?

"Ethan turned to grave a vile of Novasil..."

Then, a couple sentences later: "Shoving the glass vial into the injector..."

The vile magically turns into a vial.   

"The girl ran past the boy, much to his frustrated glare..."

"The girl ran past the boy, his glare following her..."   Something like that, right?   But the first one just makes me giggle.  I know what the author is trying to say, but the execution is just so poor!

"The Tir believed that children were the best judges of character, as they were unbiased and could see the true natures of people's spirit."  

There's a reason children don't decide who we trust in the real world.   I can actually believe this of a people, but it also sounds like a spectacular way for this trust issue to blow up in their faces.   I think it's just sad that the fact that children can be easily deceived, particularly by adults who they see as having more experience and maturity and authority, wasn't actually explored in this book.  

"She used the second towels to dry Orynn's face and limbs before placing over her hair."

I'm just gonna admit, I'm not sure what the fuck happened in that sentence. 

"Orynn just shook her head in another giggle."

Yup, not sure what happened there either.   My best guess: "Orynn just shook her head as she giggled."   But again, this happens all the time in this book.  Simple words like in/as, for/to, and so on are used improperly.  I think my favorite is still 'a cure to his son' instead of 'a cure for his son'.   Totally different things, dude.  Sometimes a two or three letter word can make or break a sentence. 

"The twitch in his right eye stuttered."

Shuttered, maybe?   Stuttered is a spoken thing, or sound.   More importantly, 'his eye twitched,' is all you need.   Twitch=shuttering/stuttering.   But this book is full of bloated sentences and words that seem to be there to up the word count.   Which is a shame.   This could have been at least a four star book if it had been edited properly and cleaned up.  I really do want to read more about the characters, but I'm hesitant to spend four dollar per full book if the other books are as shoddily written as this one was.  

Birthday challenge book.