Last Call (Fault Lines, #1) in Fantasy-Faction.com

Sep 07, 2013 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: backlist-burndown, fantasy

Review from TenaciousReader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2015/0...

3.5/5 stars

The Last Call is a unique fantasy where magic lies within cards. It is about fate and destiny as told by the cards. When you play with others, you also have the ability to control and trade your destiny in life through the game at hand. One player has even found a way to win people’s bodies for his own devices through these ‘games’. Pretty much, the cards are much larger than anything you would think of as a game. Yo Review from TenaciousReader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2015/0...

3.5/5 stars

The Last Call is a unique fantasy where magic lies within cards. It is about fate and destiny as told by the cards. When you play with others, you also have the ability to control and trade your destiny in life through the game at hand. One player has even found a way to win people’s bodies for his own devices through these ‘games’. Pretty much, the cards are much larger than anything you would think of as a game. You see people in the book start to mirror the cards in a deck. It’s like a real life game of cards where you play with your entire life.

We’ve all heard stories of fortune tellers and tarot card readers, but this is really nothing like that, while being similar at the same time. I know, I’m not making any sense and presenting a contradictory description. But I feel that’s fair here because the ties to cards lends a familiarity to the story. But how the cards are woven into real life is unlike anything I’ve read before. This book features a strangeness, a surreal quality that is achieved with this blending of magic and bizarre situations to otherwise normal people much the same way Gaiman’s books do.

As much as I see to love about this book, have to confess that I seem to have had a bit of a Love-Ambivelant relationship with this one. I loved the humor, I loved the action that would occur at times, I loved some of the mystery behind it. But I also found my self feeling rather ambivalent about components of the story as well. I think mainly the level in which cards were integrated into the story. I mean, they had to be, the entire story revolved around cards, but sometimes, the details about the cards and how they relate, how one hand might relate to another, the rules, etc. I just didn’t care about those details to the extent they were told and would feel my interest wane a bit. The plot also didn’t seem to move at a good enough pace to keep me fully engaged (or maybe it felt that way because of my waning interest). It actually reminded me of how I would tire of reading about the card games in Gardens of the Moon, but honestly, it was more of a task for me in this than it was in GotM where it was more of a slightly amusing type of too long, not a lose my interest type of long.

I will also mention that this book seemed to straddle my weirdness threshold. (I don’t often care for books if they get “too weird” for me). It didn’t quite cross that, but it walked the line in parts. This makes it a hard one to review because I certainly see qualities in it I respect, and I can understand why there’s a good amount of love for this book and author. I am curious if another book by Powers may work better for me.

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Jun 07, 2015 Jeni rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, specfic-other-weird, read-in-2016

Not one that I could say I 'enjoyed' - for me, this was more a case of a mildly intriguing story,with characters I couldn't really muster any enthusiasm for. The fact that the Kindle version I read was riddled with typo's didn't help either. ...more

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