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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Docking a star because of typos and grammatical errors.
Grrrreat book though! Definitely set up to be the first of a long series. Otherwise I'd be confused at the appearance of characters such as The Bard and The Thief. They're obviously poised to take the lead in their own respective volumes.
Grrrreat book though! Definitely set up to be the first of a long series. Otherwise I'd be confused at the appearance of characters such as The Bard and The Thief. They're obviously poised to take the lead in their own respective volumes.
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The writing style was a little lean but the characters and plot get more and more engaging as you read. The ending had me twisted! If you are into high fantasy or lots of descriptive writing this may be a slower start but its worth the read.
I read this book in three days, and enjoyed myself utterly throughout. It follows a former adventurer doing some investigative work for his bishop and despite his utter familiarity with this book's complex world I never felt more confused than he was by what was going on, but equally there are no great chunks of pure plot-free world-building. In a world that is presumably like ours in that there's a roughly 50:50 split between men and women, I feel there could have been more women included as characters, but those that were felt just as fleshed out and solid as the men for which I am grateful in a fantasy novel. I greatly enjoyed the concept of poor locals mistrusting adventurers - derogatorily referred to as ratcatchers - and the explicit demonstration near the beginning of why this is the prevailing mindset was fantastic.
I get the sense of what the author was trying to do here. The hardboiled detective story, told in a fantasy world. The titular priest takes the role of the detective that's been through much before he gets hired to solve this story's murder. And I think we hit a lot of the tropes of that kind of story along the way: the society of figures that the hero needs to investigate that want nothing to do with him, the innocent that needs saving, the woman that seems decides to throw herself at the hero for not much of a reason, and corruption of various important individuals.
Now I'm not highly familiar with this particular style/genre. I'm sure some of the mystery stories I've read before have fallen into it. So I'm not sure if one of my issues with the book is a bug or a feature. But I don't feel like there's any chance for the reader to come close to solving the mystery on their own. There are no clues for the priest to study. There are no witnesses willing to answer the priest's questions. He just spins his wheels until he gives up and goes home, and only then does he have some kind of epiphany that brings him back to try to fix the case again.
My other major issue is in the mechanics. It's very clear at times that this is a self-published work. There were a few times where you could spot where the writer had taken a break and come back to a line and because of doing so ended up repeating part of the sentence to get going again. The big one though is when, in the middle of an action sequence, the priest ends up having flashbacks to his time as an adventurer for hire. So we get alternating paragraphs between the present with the hero's ally trying to save them both and the past where the hero was traumatized. Except there's no warning when the two switch. It's literally a paragraph change, and the story has shifted perspective. There is no change of type to show we're in the hero's head. There's no line to break the two portions up when there's a switch. It feels like the author wrote both parts separately and then copied and pasted the one into the other without checking to see how they flowed together.
Now I'm not highly familiar with this particular style/genre. I'm sure some of the mystery stories I've read before have fallen into it. So I'm not sure if one of my issues with the book is a bug or a feature. But I don't feel like there's any chance for the reader to come close to solving the mystery on their own. There are no clues for the priest to study. There are no witnesses willing to answer the priest's questions. He just spins his wheels until he gives up and goes home, and only then does he have some kind of epiphany that brings him back to try to fix the case again.
My other major issue is in the mechanics. It's very clear at times that this is a self-published work. There were a few times where you could spot where the writer had taken a break and come back to a line and because of doing so ended up repeating part of the sentence to get going again. The big one though is when, in the middle of an action sequence, the priest ends up having flashbacks to his time as an adventurer for hire. So we get alternating paragraphs between the present with the hero's ally trying to save them both and the past where the hero was traumatized. Except there's no warning when the two switch. It's literally a paragraph change, and the story has shifted perspective. There is no change of type to show we're in the hero's head. There's no line to break the two portions up when there's a switch. It feels like the author wrote both parts separately and then copied and pasted the one into the other without checking to see how they flowed together.
Full disclosure...this book knocked me out of last years Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off at Fantasy Faction, and I read it only to find out what new classic in Fantasy literature could possibly have defeated the amazing story that is Dave Woke Up (available now for free on this very website)!
Priest totally deserved it's win as a finalist. It's a fascinating new world that I hope to get deeper into. The use of religious magic system, along with several more arcane varieties, is one of my favorite things in fantasy and one that is so rarely used. It's brought to the fore front almost right away and it's an intrinsic part of the plot, so used to the fullest, which is how all magic systems should be managed.
The magic system also leads us to the title character. A rich and twisted young man with a history that brings us into the world through dynamic experiences and memories that show the breadth and creativity of the author. I had some issue with the implied history of the character that seemed like we had missed the previous book (or D&D play session) which made for some awkward character moments. I think that the growing confusion of the character and his inner turmoil make for a fine drive to the novel.
There's a lot introduced in the story and sometimes it feels like there are assumptions made in the world building that leave the reader uninformed, but most of it is so visually appealing and fantastically interesting that it's forgivable.
I'd encourage anyone who loves fantasy to give this novel a chance. I gave Priest three stars out of five.
Priest totally deserved it's win as a finalist. It's a fascinating new world that I hope to get deeper into. The use of religious magic system, along with several more arcane varieties, is one of my favorite things in fantasy and one that is so rarely used. It's brought to the fore front almost right away and it's an intrinsic part of the plot, so used to the fullest, which is how all magic systems should be managed.
The magic system also leads us to the title character. A rich and twisted young man with a history that brings us into the world through dynamic experiences and memories that show the breadth and creativity of the author. I had some issue with the implied history of the character that seemed like we had missed the previous book (or D&D play session) which made for some awkward character moments. I think that the growing confusion of the character and his inner turmoil make for a fine drive to the novel.
There's a lot introduced in the story and sometimes it feels like there are assumptions made in the world building that leave the reader uninformed, but most of it is so visually appealing and fantastically interesting that it's forgivable.
I'd encourage anyone who loves fantasy to give this novel a chance. I gave Priest three stars out of five.
When I first attempted to read Priest I bounced off it. I got partially into the first chapter and put it on the digital pile of other kindle books from fellow redditors. Sometime later, Matt Colville began his YouTube channel and I became a fan of his work there. I decided to give Priest another chance. Conveniently, Matt had recently updated the book with a professional edit and man it showed. I was immediately drawn into Heden's tale and thoroughly enjoyed the ride. It's taken me a bit to give the book a review, and I've increased my rating from 4 to 5 stars. Why? Simple. It has stayed with me. I think about Heden. I want to find out where his tale goes from here. Now that I realize this is also a "getting the team together", well, I'm on board.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a great book. There's a nice ramp up to figuring out who Heden is and the ending sets the rest of the series up nicely for what's to come. Can't wait to dive into Thief.
This book was very obviously written by a man. There we 3 female characters that spoke for more than 2 chapters. One these 3, one was a 13/14 year old whore, another was a squire he stood naked trying to fuck Heden. The last stood naked as she went up in flames. There is obviously a theme here. It also seems that every conversation Heden has with a woman results in him trying to figures her out and him ending up confused. It is mention that Heden saw them as puzzles and not as people, he then last saw them as people in some weird ‘wise’ realisation. However every interaction Heden has with a man results in some weird mutual understanding of ‘aggression and respect’. He even meets a fucking saint and all he can do is look at her legs. Even the narration is sexist. I think I have read the word ‘men’ meaning ‘people’ about 50 times in total. Beyond the blatant sexism, disregard, disrespect and objectification of women throughout the entire book, it isn’t even a good story.
The motivation of almost every character in the whole book makes no sense to me and is never really explained. All the battles described we’re hugely outbalanced by this way to OP weapon called ‘Starkiller’. Yet still every knight, who are far better trained and more powerful them him, dies and Heden lives. He is meant to be this extremely wise character, but saying some vague quote isn’t an answer to a question. Its just stupid. Many crisis have come by and Heden just solves them last minute with one word. Which he then conveniently forgets until the next last minute moment. Talk about Deus Ex Machina. All of this is honestly just bad writing.
Not to mention that the book was just plain boring too. He went on way to long in almost every scene. Half way through the book nothing has happened and then the ‘action’ starts and its just 30 pages of nonsensical fighting. I found myself glancing at the page numbers so many times, thinking when does it fucking stop.
The motivation of almost every character in the whole book makes no sense to me and is never really explained. All the battles described we’re hugely outbalanced by this way to OP weapon called ‘Starkiller’. Yet still every knight, who are far better trained and more powerful them him, dies and Heden lives. He is meant to be this extremely wise character, but saying some vague quote isn’t an answer to a question. Its just stupid. Many crisis have come by and Heden just solves them last minute with one word. Which he then conveniently forgets until the next last minute moment. Talk about Deus Ex Machina. All of this is honestly just bad writing.
Not to mention that the book was just plain boring too. He went on way to long in almost every scene. Half way through the book nothing has happened and then the ‘action’ starts and its just 30 pages of nonsensical fighting. I found myself glancing at the page numbers so many times, thinking when does it fucking stop.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism