Ought to be Dead

It was definitely an interesting sci-fi, fantasy read. However, I found the begging to be a tad bit slow for me. Nonetheless, it was one fine read

Because of a glitch on Goodreads that didn't associate this one with his other books, it wasn't until I reached the end that I realized I'd read one of Scott Warren's books before (The Dragon's Banker). The same strengths and, sadly, the same weaknesses are on display here.

Strengths: this is an engaging, well-told story with a competent protagonist whose heart is in the right place (even if it doesn't beat much anymore). Garth Nix has taught me that I don't mind reading about necromancers if they're working on behalf of the living, and so I took the risk of picking this up, knowing that it could be darker than I prefer. It wasn't, and it had a gentle humour that added to the enjoyment. It's a premise I haven't seen a thousand times before, and it hits the emotional beats well in a soundly-structured plot.

Weaknesses: I got a pre-publication version from Netgalley, and I don't know how much copy editing it is going to get between now and publication, or how good the copy editor will be. But even a very good copy editor who is excellent at punctuation and has a better-than-average vocabulary will only be able to do so much to compensate for the fact that the author is truly terrible at punctuation, commits most of the other common language mistakes, and makes a lot of vocabulary errors (not only using the wrong spelling for numerous homonyms, but using the wrong word altogether in many cases). Having written multiple books, and obviously being committed to writing as a significant part of his life, this author ought to invest some time in improving his grasp of basic mechanics, because the many, many issues seriously detract from what is otherwise a good book. (To be fair, the frequently mispunctuated dialog may partly have been caused by Apple's auto-incorrect, which wrongly starts a dialog tag with a capital when it occurs after dialog containing a question mark or exclamation mark. But the author gets it right sometimes - more often than not, by the end of the book; maybe he turned off that particular autocorrect "rule". This suggests that he does know how it's supposed to be and ought, therefore, to have fixed the many errors of this kind in the earlier part of the book before sending it out for review.)

It makes it to my Best of the Year list, but in the lowest tier. Without the dozens of copy editing issues, I would have rated it a good deal higher. Again, many, even most, of these may well be fixed by publication, but when there are so many, some will always slip through even the best of copy editors. Far better not to make the mistakes in the first place.

The book takes place on an ancient world that is infused with magic. Someone is brought back from the dead and hunts evil monsters. It's an interesting book.

“You really ought to be dead for this sort of work.”

And if you're a soul coming back through centuries to seek revenge, it's even better.
We witness the birth of our unconventional hero in a shack towards North, were the village is the last stronghold to something sinister coming from the wilderness. Here the necromancer Dierdrana gets woken up in the middle of the night by a company of sailors that need to catch the morning's tide, and to do so they need to bring back to life the dock inspector that suddenly died while carrying on with his duties. This is not an unusual request – for whatever amount of time the job needs to be done (for short or for longer), the dead can walk on Earth again. It's up to the single villages how much trust and rights they want to give them.
What is unusual is that the necromancer can't do anything but bring to life the soul of an unknown person who died for the same kind of wound, and doesn't remember much apart for his hate towards what killed him in the first place – monsters. From here we follow the hero and his bookworm assistant in many quests, some out of bare survival and some towards an enemy that is loose in the world and will bring the ultimate challenge.
The book stays in the major topics of the epic fantasy genre for the way the hero is faced with various quests to clean the world from evil, while being on a quest himself. It has some reminiscence of The Witcher Saga and Game of Thrones, but it's not derivative and brings a lot of fresh perspective to the genre. The world the author manage to create offers a peek at something that I genuinely hope will evolve in a series, despite his description as stand-alone. I don't think I could ever get enough of the lore old and new the author infuses his world with, and it has a lot of potential for something more. Not that the book itself it's not satisfying enough – it has action, depth, sentiment, wit in its vision of the world, and it has a powerful ending that perfectly fits with the atmosphere and the refined and technical language the book is written in, still resulting both approachable and smooth. I guess it's just me being greedy after enjoying it so much.
This book is perfect for a quick read without suffering for the lack of plot, action or myths intertwined with the complexion of human nature, and it's an original addition to a genre that has been already largely experimented with.

"Still, whatever he had been before had little bearing on what he was now. But his life, unlife rather, wasn’t bad by most counts if you disregarded the occasional mauling. It stayed peaceful, aside from the monsters. Even most of them were just hungry or territorial, or in heat. Not evil. Men and their problems mostly stayed out of his path. Best of all, most days were nothing but an open sky above and an endless road ahead. At his core, Specter needed to wander. He couldn’t abide being someone who stayed in one place, doing the same old thing day after day like, well, like Dierdrana’s gardener."

I thoroughly enjoyed Ought to be Dead by Scott Warren; it was an entertaining and unique book. The characters were all delightful and distinct, and the world-building was a unique take on certain familiar tropes (dwarves, elves) while also containing much originality. It was so fascinating to read a story where necromancy is a legalized trade, at least in parts of the world, and from the point of view of an undead character.

Most importantly, my favourite parts of the book were the philosophical threads — what makes a monster, perhaps humans are the real monsters, as well as the status of the undead within this world — and the message of hope and kindness.

I really appreciated that, while there is plenty of action and fights, the pace of the book was measured — more of a slow-burn instead of a fast race to the finish. It allowed me to learn more about the world, to enjoy Specter and Cotton’s adventures, and to take the time to breathe as the over-arching plot took shape. Moreover, the book’s structure of multiple parts allowed for mini-arcs of monster-hunting adventures and character development while nevertheless building up a mystery up to the final climax. I admit that it did take a little bit for me to actually get into the book, but by the third chapter I was completely enraptured.

All in all, I found this book to be very unique, entertaining, and definitely worth the read.