The first part of this review will try to mostly be objective, with subjective criticism coming in through the second half. There should be only minor spoilers in the first half.
Objectively, the book is highly flawed. To start with, the structure between pornography and narrative is really bad. The first two sections, War Hound and Hunting Hound, are purely pornography and don't really have that much interesting character work going on. Hunting Hound is better than War Hound in this regard, but it still is too limited with its story and it is more of a pornographic pastiche. There aren't really any stakes and you know what's going to happen.
Rescue Hound is the real novel with actual characters, stakes, plot and character development. However, there is a big pacing problem. Much of its length is padded out with pornographic scenes, which aren't necessarily a problem, but I found myself getting bored. This was the part with a plot, and yet the plot was going so slowly. The story should have had less of it in and more character work or the introduction of more rebel characters (especially rebel characters in leadership who actually have agency).
The writing can be very sparse. It certainly is intentionally plain to an extent, but there could have been better description at points, especially during the drug scenes which are meant to be transcedental, but are written just functionally. It's at its worst in the beginning but improves as the story goes on. On the other hand, the action scenes are well written and I found them to be very exciting. Maybe this is just because I like mechs. I was not reading the book as pornography so I can't comment on the effectiveness of the sex scenes, and though some can be a little corny, I think they are mostly serviceable.
There are some plot inconsitencies. There isn't really a leadership on the rebel's side, they never actually do anything other than purely defensive missions. It's kind of ridiculous that they left Sartha at the frontline base rather than retreating her back. It's frustrating. Their supply lines and logistics also don't really make much sense. You can't fight an industrial war with hodge-podge individually made mechs, especially not one where you have a major material disadvantage and you are losing. Even producing replacement parts when every mech is unique would be a nightmare.
It is an idealist story which puts far too much weight on the actions of individu
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