Reviews

Waylander by David Gemmell

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abigcoffeedragon's review against another edition

1.0

Okay - I am done with Gemmell - his heroes are all carbon cut-outs of each other - this is his fourth book that I have read, and I cannot do it anymore - characters that die but do not die - characters that die but kill in their death - women are all w****es (and I mean all) - men are okay with women being w****es - traitors that tell their detailed plans to strangers - people who know that there is a plot, and continue because they think that knowing will save them from death - strangers fall in love, but never say a kind word to one another - and the hero is always, and I mean Always and old out of shape dude that knows he will die ... and he will die, making these very tragic hero stories, which would be okay, if I actually cared about the hero -

I think what kept me going was that the narrative is actually okay to read - but in the end there really is no story and no one wins and you could have lived your entire life without hearing this story and still been okay on your deathbed - the magic (when it exists) has no logic and works when it wants to - and lots and LOTS of war and killing, with thousands dying to no end and to no purpose -

I have officially quit all things David Gemmell and I will not go down this road again - I liked no one in this book - I did not even like the children as they were rude and merely a plot device

fabian2301's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

gyttja's review against another edition

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3.0

Helt okej bok med bra tempo. Generisk europeisk fantasy. De två stora minus för min del är 1) Att det endast är en kvinnlig karaktär och hon känns som hon bara är med som ett verktyg att beskriva männens personlighet och karisma. T.ex räddas av och utsättas för männen. 2) Dialogen är inte så bra. Vissa delar kan vara det minst mänskliga jag någonsin läst. Inge flyt och nyanser av personlighet.

captain_trips's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring fast-paced

3.75

Heroic, dark, and even epic, this is a solid installment in Gemmell's Drenai Saga.

kitvaria_sarene's review against another edition

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4.0

Finally I managed to get around to reading my very first Gemmell! It will definitely not be my last one...
I really enjoyed the story - especially the characters. Waylander is a great character to follow - I had a thing for him from the moment when a priest asked him to save him from death, and Waylander answers "Why?" Just my kind of character! I liked the others too, and was glad to be able to spend so much time with them.
The plot was interesting, and for me had a good balance between a bit of politic, lots of action, quite some quests and adventures, a siege and being thrown into the army life.

I give only 4 stars because of A) the characters changing a bit too often - way to fast for my personal liking, some solutions being just a bit TOO easy and parts of it being quite predictable. Since it was out way before most of the other fantasy books, it isn't at fault for being predictable - most classics are in a way - as so many others have taken their inspirations from the older titles.

I did like just how dark it was for a classic - it felt a bit like the start of nowadays grimdark books to me - and I once again liked the balance Gemmell strikes between despair and hope, blood and beauty, fight and faith, grit and adventure.

My ebook copy had quite some little typos, I would not expect that from a professionally published ebook, but the prose was fluent and good enough to let me flow by tose and ignore them without getting annoyed.

If you haven't yet tried Gemmell - I definitely recommend it! One of the only classics besides LOTR that really could hook me completely!

eric_w_burns's review against another edition

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3.5

[Rating: 3.5/5.0]

This was one of the less impressive books by David Gemmell I've read but still good. It's interesting to see the origins of some of the things in the previous two novels in the series. It takes place hundreds of years before the last novel, and the series in general jumps around of the timeline to tell what are loosely connected independent stories.

On the negative side, it handles grief and trauma really weirdly, and certain characters bounce back way faster and more completely from experiences than I would expect from real people. I can't give more details without spoiling things, but some readers who have gone through similar difficult experiences might even find it offensive. It was a little off-putting to me.

On the positive side there's some really strong character work and character arcs here, with weighty themes like redemption and how does one effectively overcome evil forces in the world without risking corruption. There's definitely enough here to elevate it above an average (3.0) fantasy novel, but not really enough to compete with Gemmell's better works like Legend and the Jon Shannow Trilogy.