I understand that the book was aimed to young adults, but several parts of the dialogue felt really cringy…
Wasn’t a fan of all the ways the author tried to connect with the Instagram generation.
Overall, the story really lacked depth. I don’t think we learned anything new that we hadnt known or inferred previously. There were no discoveries. From the start we knew that Efi was going to build Orisa to defend Numbani from DF. That’s exactly how it played out + the addition of Lucio at the end.
Good points: Orisa and Lucio fought together, and Doomfist had his eye on Efi and help her get the grant. That’s it.
I really expected to get a lot of lore bits and foreshadowing for new heroes and characters. The original characters in the story gave me nothing. Worst offender is cousin Bisi.
All and all, I feel we have gotten more lore (interesting lore, that is) from Ana’s Mercy’s and Baptiste’s short stories.
I hope the next overwatch books are better than this one.
It was bad. Oh… and Efi is definitely a Mary Sue type of character. I guess writing for a woke “genious roboticist” (which is repeated a looooooot throughout the book) is not very easy.
Her screw ups are not really that much of a screw up. In the end she has the power of doing everything great. Her hero journey is not that interesting. When things don’t go her way, they are really stupid things that she can fix by apologizing, most of the times.
… which is not the mark of a Mary Sue. It’s the mark of a narrative arc that is rooted in her prioritizing her relationships with others instead of just proving she’s smarter than everyone else in order to solve the problem presented by the plot.
Efi as a Mary Sue would have gotten everything right in an unbelievable manner. Instead, Efi as written is a realistic depiction of a child genius struggling with her place in the world.
I don’t think you properly understand what a Mary Sue is.
I stand by what I said. She’s too Mary Sueish for my taste.
I find it funny that you actually said “realistic depiction of a child genius”. Why not add that she’s the best roboticist, now is a millionaire and is the wokest activist that does best for her community?
Definitely a 6/10 or a 6.5/10; not bad, but definitely not great either.
Efi, while being a super genius, DID go through numerous slices of humble pies because her screw-ups. No amount of super-genius will ever replace years upon years of real-world experience & wisdom and it showed.
That said…
I felt that the inclusion of voice lines and command phrases from the game was a bit much and didn’t really feel all that fitting in an actual literary piece (very cringe-worthy indeed).
Not only that, but I also felt like the Overwatch in-game characters felt very unbelievable as characters and more like characters that you’d see on a Saturday-morning cartoon.
Meanwhile, the regular denizens of Numbani were definitely more believable as individuals.
I didn´t read it yet, but I see Efi like this: if our generation kids are able to use smartphones, why kids of 2070 would not be able to create a robot?
