Interesting story idea here, although I much prefer some of Waller's other stories (such as 'South Face'). One of the main reasons why I didn't give the story higher stars is because I didn't like the heroine at all and I cannot understand why she was recruited to do what she did throughout the story. She didn't seem to have any useful expertise in any field, yet by the end of the book we still never really found out why she, in particular, was recruited.
As other reviewers have noted, this is NOT a story about airplanes crashing in the Indian Ocean (even though that's how the story starts); instead, it's more like War Games, the movie from the 80s. I enjoy sci fi and video gaming, so the plot arc held my attention and I didn't reduce my rating for the somewhat misleading cover image on the book (an image of a drone rather than an airplane in the air would have been much more apropos). I was confused about the ending - things wrapped up too neatly and there were more than a few unresolved questions about the main character and her sidekick (e.g., why weren't they eliminated, since this was a big fear of the heroine throughout the book? why bring up the sister when nothing eventually happened with that thread?).
Finally, there were lots of spelling errors. The kind of spelling errors that a spellcheck wouldn't catch, but someone with decent high school English grades would identify ('to' vs. 'too', 'it's' vs. 'its', 'rogue' vs. 'rouge', and so on). Some authors may feel defensive when hearing feedback consisting of reader complaints about grammar/spelling errors (it sound petty, right?), but listen: If the author wants to publish a story, it's worth the investment to pay an honour roll high school kid or an English tutor $100 and have him or her read the story to identify these kinds of simple spelling/grammar errors. Not to critique the plot, but to proofread the words. Well-respected and successful authors often list many people in acknowledgements, who help them with fact-checking and advice about technical plot points and such. Truly, it's not a big deal that finicky English grammar isn't an author's strong point. What is a bigger deal is that the author releases books to the public and wants the public to pay good money for a published story that has excessive spelling/grammar errors. (I do plenty of academic and business writing in my field of work. Multiple grammar/spelling errors aren't acceptable in professional publications, including review copies of publications. And, yes, *every* time I type 'it's' or 'its' I have to stop and pause to recall the proper usage of each of those words.). This sounds like a rant, but that's definitely not my intention. Only, this isn't the first book by this author that contains excessive spelling errors - it suggests that sincere reader feedback is being ignored. Readers (such as myself) *will* knock off stars in their ratings because of these kinds of errors - having a second set of eyes doing proofreading seems like an easy way to improve ratings for such interesting stories. Multiple spelling errors throws off readers like me, they disrupt us and jar us from the flow of the story. An analogy would be all those bloody commercials interrupting a really good football game.
I received a review copy in exchange for providing my opinion.
Waypoint: A Game of Drones
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Top review from Canada
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One of the main reasons why I didn't give the story higher stars is because I didn't like the heroine at all and I cannot understand why ...
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 27, 2017Top reviews from other countries
Kindle Customer Elaine
Didn't answer all my questions
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 17, 2020Verified Purchase
Thom M.
This was a very enjoyable read and the teaming of Staci/Lydia and Kara make for a perfect combination. I can only hope that Mr
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 7, 2017Verified Purchase
Kindle Customer
Good, but
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 8, 2020Verified Purchase
Lisa T.
Cool beginning
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 12, 2020Verified Purchase
Amazon Customer
War Games reimagined!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 27, 2017Verified Purchase
