Reviews

Artesia by Mark Smylie

jonathonjones's review against another edition

It takes itself very seriously, like no character has ever heard of irony or a sense of humor. Rather, all statements are either bold pronouncements, or "intrigue".

I'm sure this is great, but it really didn't do it for me.

ericawrites's review

3.0

Way too much world building focused instead of character focused. I found it hard to be invested in the story. Also Artesia needed full pants like the others, way too much exposure for a warrior. (She gets them in later volumes.)

jokoloyo's review

3.0

I expect a medieval dark feminine heroic fantasy (is there really that kind of subgenre?) of a killer body (pun intended) female main character just by looking the cover. What I didn't expect was, the story was more epic than I expected. The art is good, and the world building is better than my expectation.

Of course it was about Artesia, the main protagonist, and other characters paled before her. Maybe that's the problem, the Artesia was too strong, (at least for volume one) there was no worthy opponent for her. Artesia reminded me with Conan, but Artesia was very successful compared to Conan. In short, she is a Mary Stu in heroic fantasy. She has warrior weapon mastery, priestess divine power, and general military skill.

I am struggling between 2 or 3 star. I might changed my rating from time to time.