Pentapod reviewed Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Review of 'Made Things' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is the first fantasy book I've read by Tchaikovsky, and maybe it's because I started with his "Children of Time" series that I found this one a little underwhelming, but it felt just downright TOO SHORT. It's the story of Coppelia, an apprentice puppet maker in a magical city who gets drawn into a daring heist; and also the story of tiny automata created through a combination of artifice and magic. These little puppet-sized people are trying to establish themselves in the city and make contact with Coppelia, who is fascinated and forms a partnership with them.
There are a lot of great elements in this book - the tiny automata, the magical city, the class stratification - but somehow they just didn't seem to deliver satisfactorily. Maybe I'm judging overly harshly because I know Tchaikovsky can and has done so much better, but the ending seemed to wrap …
This is the first fantasy book I've read by Tchaikovsky, and maybe it's because I started with his "Children of Time" series that I found this one a little underwhelming, but it felt just downright TOO SHORT. It's the story of Coppelia, an apprentice puppet maker in a magical city who gets drawn into a daring heist; and also the story of tiny automata created through a combination of artifice and magic. These little puppet-sized people are trying to establish themselves in the city and make contact with Coppelia, who is fascinated and forms a partnership with them.
There are a lot of great elements in this book - the tiny automata, the magical city, the class stratification - but somehow they just didn't seem to deliver satisfactorily. Maybe I'm judging overly harshly because I know Tchaikovsky can and has done so much better, but the ending seemed to wrap up very abruptly and not entirely believably, and there are a lot of loose ends left unanswered that I would have loved to see included (like Coppelia's parents, and what happened to Auntie's collection). I will likely pick up the sequel to see if more is revealed there.
