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chalkletters's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Growing up, one of the stories my mum would tell me was of Anne McCaffrey’s white dragon, a special dragon that hatched and imprinted on a young boy who hadn’t expected such an honour. It’s why, when I first encountered Norbert in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I told Mum that she had to read it, because it had a dragon! I had that exact same feeling in The Black Coast, when an undergrown dragon is dropped (almost literally) into a character’s lap. Mum would’ve loved it.
Mike Brooks’ dragons are far more varied than most. Not only do the dragons come in different colours, but there are huge herbivores with tree-trunk legs and smaller carnivores with wicked razor claws, as well as the usual fire-breathing beasts of legend. This, and the fact they’re mostly feathered, suggests that ‘dragon’ might be an in-universe term for 'dinosaur’. (Which doesn’t make it any less magical that they can be tamed and ridden by humans.)
If you wanted to boil The Black Coast down to a ten-second elevator pitch, you could start with 'fantasy but with dinosaurs’, though it wouldn’t do the writing justice. Mike Brooks provides something for almost any kind of fantasy fan: there’s castles and honour for Robin Hobb fans, a criminal underworld for lovers of Locke Lamora and perspective-hopping plus a willingness to kill off important characters if you haven’t had enough of that in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Despite keeping a lot of different balls in the air, Mike Brooks manages to bring almost all the subplots to a satisfying place, while still leaving tantalising glimpses of what’s to come. The world and characters feel alive and the reader gets the sense that Mike Brooks knows what he’s building up to. The handling of perspective characters working against the heroes was particularly effective, with a special shoutout to Rikkut Fireheart for being extremely unpleasant, misguided but somehow still compelling.
I’d thoroughly recommend The Black Coast to fantasy fans, and will definitely be following up on the rest of the series.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Animal death, Suicide, Death of parent, and Violence
Minor: Alcohol, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, and Homophobia
oliverlang's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I loved it! Immaculate world building. The nuances of cultural differences and language was spectacular. Everything from the description of the sky to being within the throws of battle was well written, descriptive and gripping. I'm really looking forward to reading the second and third books.
"It was a murky morning. The sun had probably just about hauled itself over the horizon behind the clouds that rolled in overnight, but at the moment was doing about as much work as the rest of Black Keep "
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Homophobia, Suicide, Violence, War, Grief, Sexual content, Confinement, Death, Biphobia, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, and Self harm
jupiter2932's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Homophobia
Moderate: Sexism
sarah984's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book is the beginning of an epic fantasy series, but the "epic" portions were my least favourite parts. I am not invested at all in the squabbles over which of the three God-King candidates is legitimate, or the weird demon politics across the sea. However, the book shines in more slice-of-life sections where people from two disparate cultures need to learn to live side by side if they want to survive.
I thought the different cultures were well written and felt realistic even though they were also clearly designed to have rough edges that would catch on one another. The homophobia from one of the POV characters was a little much for me personally though. It's challenged in the text but it's really violent and the narrative kind of excuses it which annoyed me.
I can see a few obvious plot setups for the sequel that made me groan (there is one subplot in particular that requires a major character to be really careless about something extremely important in a way that seems contrived and uncharacteristic that will really bug me if it's a major feature in the sequel) but overall it left me feeling glad I read it.
I thought the different cultures were well written and felt realistic even though they were also clearly designed to have rough edges that would catch on one another. The homophobia from one of the POV characters was a little much for me personally though. It's challenged in the text but it's really violent and the narrative kind of excuses it which annoyed me.
I can see a few obvious plot setups for the sequel that made me groan (there is one subplot in particular that requires a major character to be really careless about something extremely important in a way that seems contrived and uncharacteristic that will really bug me if it's a major feature in the sequel) but overall it left me feeling glad I read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, War, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual content, and Suicide
Minor: Dysphoria, Kidnapping, Outing, Pregnancy, and Transphobia
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