Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Blacktongue Thief

The Blacktongue Thief is a worthy dark fantasy adventure with a super interesting cast of characters. I genuinely wanted to get to know each of them more.

It also has enough humor to balance the darker moments to see you through to the end, and it's a wild ride getting there! I'm ready for the sequel, and would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a dark yet high fantasy romp with a quirky bunch of characters and well-written world!

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idksamiguess's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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mariediane016's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My favourite read of the year so far by a long shot. A quest-dtoven fantasy adventure with a good dose of humour. Quite dark at times, but not gratuitously grim like so much of modern fantasy. Works well as a standalone, but it seems like the author is also working on a sequel. Highly recommended for fans of Joe Abercrombie and Dungeons and Dragons!

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knownothing's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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emmyanne's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it is definitely not for everyone. The language is vulgar and graphic, but it's weirdly a refreshing change from very wholesome fantasy characters that are popular right now. Kinch is, in a word, problematic, but he himself will be the first to admit that. There is something genuine and endearing about his roguish bravado and the narration is fun if you can get past how gross it is. The magic system was very interesting and unique, which always scores some extra points for me. I love when the magic exists as an art instead of merely a plot device to force you to suspend disbelief and patch up plot holes and Buehlman does a great job with this. Much of the world-building occurred through asides in Kinch's stream of consciousness, which sometimes pulled the pacing to a lull because all action would stop as he explained bits of history or linguistics. As an explorer of this new world, I loved the richness of the information but it resulted in the age-old problem of "telling" rather than "showing." Again, I liked Kinch's perspective, but the downfall of a single first person perspective is that all of the other characters must be viewed only through the lens of that character's experience. I would have loved to get to know Galva and Norrigal just a little bit better. Finally, my biggest issue with the book is that I found the larger plot too predictable, but the journey was fun so that made up for not having any real jaw-dropping plot twists and turns. All-in-all a good read and glad I got to experience it.

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