Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne

134 reviews

narsere's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

1.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent

momostark's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, and War

violinknitter's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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? Yes

3.75

So much viscera and fighting. So much. Also, despite the fighting, the main plot moves very slowly. I didn’t mind, since I was enjoying being immersed in the world (whenever I wasn’t having to skim gory fights), but it didn’t really do much until the last part of the book. And it’s not a standalone. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Kidnapping, Slavery, Torture, Death of parent, Misogyny, Gore, and War

ptrhansen's review against another edition

dark 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

3.5

Be ready to move on to book two

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Violence

Moderate: Kidnapping

succmoipp's review against another edition

4.0

If I have to read the words "thought-cage" one more time, I'm going to kill myself.

Pleasantly surprised by the lack of misogyny. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Gore, and Violence

zoelinea's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

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

3.75

The world is rich detailed and based around a cool concept, but it is clear the author intended this book to be the first of three. The pacing is incredibly slow. I would have liked to get further into the plot before the end of book 1 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: War

bunte_socke's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, War, Murder, Violence, and Gore

Moderate: Slavery

valjeanval's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

4.0

My book club billed this one as "reading Skyrim," and I think that's pretty spot on for better and worse. The characters and setting are all pretty excellent with great world building. I especially enjoy viking warrior mom even if I kept misreading her name as Okra instead of Orka. Honestly, I appreciate everything Gwynne does to subvert the patriarchal norms of historical fiction and saying, this is still fiction. This is fantasy. Let's just make a society where the genders are more or less even because we can.

The plot, however, is meandering and constantly interrupted by random encounter fight scenes.  Fun to play as a game, less fun to read. And those fight scenes are gory to a level that I just don't enjoy. It also suffers from being only half a book, and I'm not sure I enjoyed it enough to pursue the sequel right away. We shall see, but overall, a unique piece of norse-inspired fantasy though not entirely my cuppa.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, War, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Cursing, Torture, Child abuse, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

zeroschatz's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, War, Slavery, Violence, Torture, and Trafficking

Moderate: Vomit and Injury/Injury detail

iainbertram's review against another edition

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Violence, Murder, Xenophobia, and Physical abuse