The premise itself for Metal from Heaven by August Clarke is barrel of rip-roaring fun. It’s a gun-slinging, industrial revolution-inspired book that explores worker exploitation—albeit with a magical twist. However, all these stellar concepts unfortunately get watered down by shoddy execution. On a technical level, the writing quality was terribly inconsistent for me. The action sequences are awkward and clunky at times and riddled with comma splices. For instance, take a look at the following passage: "A man scrambled from his booth and threw himself across the gap, but the train lurched, his ankle twisted, he slipped and was caught just before gravity stole him by a second enforcer, who tossed him down in the second car, strode across him as she advanced on the bandits, but she’d lowered her weapon to catch him and had no time to ready it again." For a fast-paced action sequence, there is no artistic reason for this section to contain so many conjunctive clauses or...