The Illusion of Fear by Kel E Fox
A Book Review
This is a light novella yet it is dense in its own charming way. We follow a delinquent, sort of who is trying to find an escape from his past and gets looped in to a heist of a heist and he has to figure out who stole something, the what, the why, and navigate local political sensitivies as well as the very real risk that Del, our hero, will be found along the way. Apart from a little slander.
I don’t read a lot of heists but I thought this was portrayed well enough by tying it to the MC’s woes in a way that forced him to deal with it. There was no real answer for him except to get involed and find some mystical love along the way. It was fast paced and dense. You really have to pay attention to it or you will miss an important detail and this WILL cause confusion. I had to re-read the beginning to give you a picture.
The prose itself was fine, middle of the road. Some good sentences here and there with some purple prose but certainly not the level of Shakespeare or Faulker, nor does the prose swing the other way like my simpler writing does. I think the prose is right in the middle.
The characters were fleshed out quite well. You know who each person is and they have their own distinct voice. There is no question who is speaking at all, and the plot isn’t bogged down by their interactions.
The world building was enough. This wasn’t a grand scheme that required moving around, but we’re confined to mostly one city and that’s that. That city is fleshed out enough to get a picture of what the architecture looks like, some modern tech like steam engines.
If you like smalelr scale stories that really move and are tautly paced, you’re gonna wanna give this a read.