Reviews

Kay’s prose is beautiful, if not his most refined - with a wonderfully evocative world and soft magic system to back it up. The world really does feel brimming with magic and mysteries just waiting to be discovered!

However, the introduction did feel a bit clunky - and having too many pov’s meant that it was quite difficult to really connect with any characters until later in the book (and even then not all of them felt fleshed out).

The book does feature a sexual assault - and while quite brutal, knowing where the series goes, it doesn’t feel needlessly so. It’s written as something horrifying done by someone horrifying - and tries to give the victim as much dignity as possible. But it’s significant enough to deserve mention.

Overall - I believe this was Kay’s first major work, and it shows - but it also shows a ton of promise

Content Warnings

subparcupcake's review against another edition

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4.0

This book has been on my to-read list for a long time. I've read other Kay (and loved it all), but for some reason I just kept putting this one off. Every time I decided it was time to jump in, I'd read the blurb and decide to go with something else. "Five men and women find themselves flung into the magical land of Fionavar, First of all Worlds." Yeah.. About that.. The whole magically transported into a fantasy world thing? Thanks but no thanks. It just doesn't do it for me.

So needless to say, I went into this sort of dreading it and not really expecting to like it. And for about the first 25 - 30% of the story, it lived up to that expectation. One of my biggest gripes with the transported into a fantasy world thing is how unbelievable trusting people are. "Hey! I can do magic! We're going to take you to a magical world to meet our King! Are you in?" And of course... They're in. And when it actually happens, when they actually pop into existence in another world, complete acceptance. I don't know about you, but if it were me... First, I'd think whoever was asking me to go was on drugs, and I would call the police so they could come pick up the crazy man wearing a robe... Then, if I still managed to somehow make it to the other world, I'd kick the crazy man's ass thinking that they somehow managed to drug me.

So like I said.. Auto-strike against it. Another problem I had with the first 30%, there are a lot of main characters. The POV bounces around a lot, and with so many characters, you don't have much time to connect to any of them. I spent a lot of time forgetting who was who, and then figuring it out and not really caring.. It was not a good time.

But then somewhere around chapter seven (about 40%), it all clicked. And after that... Wow. It was beautiful. I was moved over and over again by the story, the writing, the characters... Everything. It was so strange... I was pretty much committed to not really liking this one, and then all of a sudden I feel myself tearing up, my heart pounding, completely wrapped up in the words I was reading. I went from forcing myself to pick it up and read a little, to hating the fact that my lunch break was over and I had to put it down. Suddenly the characters who I had spend the first 30% feeling disconnected from came alive to me. And when the characters came alive.. So did the world.

So against all odds, I ended up really loving this book. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy, this is how good traditional fantasy is done. I'm only giving it 4 stars instead of 5, because of the rocky start, but depending on how the rest of the story plays out.. I have a feeling this will be jumping onto my favorites shelf very soon.

facecloth0620's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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