I began Symphony of the Wind with the great hope that this would be a book I would love. It has airships and bounty hunters and the world seemed well-thought out and original. The Princess Bride is one of my favorite stories of all time, and anything approaching it will undoubtedly find a soft space in my heart. I even liked the beginning of the novel. I found several of the protagonists likeable, flat-out loved a scene involving a giant snake monster, and was all set to bury myself in this SPFBO entry.

And then, as I went along, I began to find more and more issues with Steven McKinnon’s vision. At 25% in, I was feeling fatigued, and after truly stretching myself to the 50% mark, I simply had to give it up. Not only did I not want to finish Symphony of the Wind, but I was beginning to actively dislike it. I do not like to say such things about any novel, let alone one involved in a contest that is so vital to the fantasy community, but I refuse to go with the flow and simply give a book a pass because everyone else seems to love it.

There were things that I liked about Symphony of the Wind, all front-loaded towards the beginning of the novel. There are some good jokes in the book, William Fitzwilliam being one of the best. As I said before, I love high adventure where airships and bounty hunters abound. There is quite a lot of the book that reminds of me a Final Fantasy game, from the combination of guns and swords to the genetic experiments - similarities that will always draw me in for nostalgic reasons. I love multi-viewpoint narratives in the vein of Robert Jordan, particularly when they can showcase an author’s ability to speak from different viewpoints. As a recipe, I look at this book and assume I will love it, but then it gets whipped together and it’s a conflicted mess with no actual flavor.

As for what I did not like about Symphony, I am going to make a short list. This is not exhaustive, but gets to the point of why I didn’t like this novel.

-Dialogue is all over the place, like each character is from a different era of time. Conversations often feel like they are part of a comedy skit, overwrought and forced.
-Viewpoint switches seem random, haphazard almost, without contributing to a cohesive narrative.
-Format feels serial, as though this was written for a SyFy series, and it almost seems like McKinnon wants to be writing science fiction instead of this mixture of fantasy and sci-fi. He also seems more concerned with blockbuster action than with telling a story.
-Coincidences are all too convenient, contrived in a way that unmasks the author and pulls a reader out of the text, which is the last thing any reader wants.
-Characters keep hinting at their past in inner monologues, but it feels forced and shadowy when we are in this character’s head and would know what they are referring to without the secret keeping. This can be done, but I don’t think McKinnon pulls it off.
-Gallows character is inconsistent, his inner monologue is grim and dark, never happy, but he is constantly cracking jokes and appearing light. Again, this can work if there is a better transition between the inner and outer monologues. In Symphony, it feels like we are dealing with two different characters.
-Even at 50%, I had no idea what the actual plot of the book is. It spends so much time trying to push its characters towards one another that it never actually starts telling a story. Again, this can work so well if the threads are tighter and woven more adeptly.

The argument could certainly be made that I am judging this book too harshly, that maybe a self-publishing contest does not warrant such scrutiny. I might agree with that assessment if there weren’t so many excellent entries into the SPFBO - books that are beautifully written and edited down to the most minute word. And frankly, this is a contest that introduced the world to Senlin Ascends, one of the best books and series that I’ve ever read. I expect the winners to approach its caliber, and Symphony of the Wind regrettably does not.