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4.17 AVERAGE
4.17 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is my first John Gwynne book. I wanted to like it more than I did, but the writing is shockingly bad a lot of the time. I was appalled to learn that the author was a university lecturer and that this was his third series. That means that somehow this level of writing got through multiple stages of a publishing house, and quite apart from it not being well-written, some of the writing is just plain wrong grammatically. The tense changes mid-paragraph, or pronouns/conjunctions just vanish for a hot second and on and on. That pulled me out of the story SO many times and it took me ages to read the book because of it.
Rant aside, I also wanted a bit more story from the book. I realize it functioned mostly as setup for the next book and things only really got going at the end. That's more or less of the only reason I'll be continuing/it got as high as rating as it did.
And lastly, for much of the book, two of the pov storylines were very repetitive, which meant a lot of stopping to focus and re-orient and figure out where I was in the story again. That stopped when Varg started to really distinguish himself (by far the best of the three POVs imo. Elvar is properly boring after a while) though. The battle scenes were often very repetitive too. Lots of who was stabbing/chopping who and mail exploding and battle rage. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to read battle scenes, I read a lot of fantasy, but these were often too drawn out with too little that was distinct happening. Orka's battle scenes were the best on that front.
Anyway, as I say, I'll continue because of what happened right at the end. Here's hoping that things improve in book two.
Rant aside, I also wanted a bit more story from the book. I realize it functioned mostly as setup for the next book and things only really got going at the end. That's more or less of the only reason I'll be continuing/it got as high as rating as it did.
And lastly, for much of the book, two of the pov storylines were very repetitive, which meant a lot of stopping to focus and re-orient and figure out where I was in the story again. That stopped when Varg started to really distinguish himself (by far the best of the three POVs imo. Elvar is properly boring after a while) though. The battle scenes were often very repetitive too. Lots of who was stabbing/chopping who and mail exploding and battle rage. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to read battle scenes, I read a lot of fantasy, but these were often too drawn out with too little that was distinct happening. Orka's battle scenes were the best on that front.
Anyway, as I say, I'll continue because of what happened right at the end. Here's hoping that things improve in book two.
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Thought cage
adventurous
challenging
dark
inspiring
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It was a bit hard for me to get into, many names and characters thrown at you, and some of the sentences was hard to grasp and had to be reread
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-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:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes