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majaingrid's review against another edition
3.0
2020 reread
Not sure about the rating, but going to keep it at 3 stars for now.
Many of my thoughts stayed the same after reading the book a second time, though I was able to appreciate it more than the first time. Maybe because I had already read the first two books, but it was much easier to follow than the first read. I’m very happy I decided to reread this one (and to reread Darksoul as well) before I get to Bloodchild because I really needed a refreshment of the characters and the plot.
I still think the cast is too big for this short a book, and that the chapters are way too short, so it still felt a little fragmented. The book has ten different PoV characters spread about 485 pages which are just too many. And I only cared for 3-4 of these. I still think the book could have benefit greatly if it was longer and the chapters were longer, or if it was fewer PoV characters to follow. Dom and Crys were definitely my favourite characters to follow. I do love the broken, tormented ones (Dom) and the more screwed ones (Crys). Crys is introduced as someone cheating at cardgames and drinking buddy for the prince and someone who could never keep his rank at the military for doing stuff he shouldn’t (both good and bad). But he’s loyal and has his heart in the right place.
After years of slavery Rillirin kills the king of Mireces, Liris and escapes. She’s saved by Dom and his fellow Wolves. The Wolves are a group of civilian warriors watching the west boarder of Rilporin, keeping watch over it for Mireces. Dom is a seer and in visions he saw Rillirin as someone important, a messenger.
Meanwhile the Mireces crowns Corvus as their new King. The Mireces worship the Red Gods: The Dark Lady and Gosfath. These gods are all about blood and torture and all that good juicy stuff. Some thousand years ago the Mireces and their dark religion was cast out of Rilpor exiled to the mountains of Gilgoras, and they have a mission. The Gods are coming back to the human world, and want to take over Rilpor.
In Rilpor they worship the Light Gods: The Dancer (Light Lady) and the Fox God (trickster etc). But the Rilporian King, King Rastoph, is sick with mourning his late wife (who was killed in suspicious events), leaving the kingdom vulnerable for attack. And high persons in the kingdom’s own court are turning to follow the Dark Lady, and joining the cause of the Mireces.
Thanks to Rilillin’s knowledge of the Mireces, and to Dom’s vision, the Wolves and the Watchers have an idea of what the Mireces are up to, but will that help them save Rilporin from them?
The writing is good. It’s descriptive with only a couple of typos. The world Stephens has created is dark, brutal gory. It got lots of brutal and unforgettable scenes (everyone who’s read the book knows exactly which particular scene I’m thinking about here). This book is grimdark and comes with stuff like violence, rape, attempted rape, bodily mutilation and dismemberment. In a graphic way.
-
2017
I was prepared to love this book. It felt right up in my alley. But I didn't love it.
The concept in the book is great! Execution however is not. The book follows no less than ten different point of views, which is A LOT seeing that this book is not the longest one, my version being 485 pages long. The chapters are short and each chapters follows a different character. But in those short chapters not much is happening and the constant character swaps made it jumpy and it was difficult to get a real grasp of any of the characters or the plot.
Not sure about the rating, but going to keep it at 3 stars for now.
Many of my thoughts stayed the same after reading the book a second time, though I was able to appreciate it more than the first time. Maybe because I had already read the first two books, but it was much easier to follow than the first read. I’m very happy I decided to reread this one (and to reread Darksoul as well) before I get to Bloodchild because I really needed a refreshment of the characters and the plot.
I still think the cast is too big for this short a book, and that the chapters are way too short, so it still felt a little fragmented. The book has ten different PoV characters spread about 485 pages which are just too many. And I only cared for 3-4 of these. I still think the book could have benefit greatly if it was longer and the chapters were longer, or if it was fewer PoV characters to follow. Dom and Crys were definitely my favourite characters to follow. I do love the broken, tormented ones (Dom) and the more screwed ones (Crys). Crys is introduced as someone cheating at cardgames and drinking buddy for the prince and someone who could never keep his rank at the military for doing stuff he shouldn’t (both good and bad).
Spoiler
and later also turns out to be the Fox God in human form.After years of slavery Rillirin kills the king of Mireces, Liris and escapes. She’s saved by Dom and his fellow Wolves. The Wolves are a group of civilian warriors watching the west boarder of Rilporin, keeping watch over it for Mireces. Dom is a seer and in visions he saw Rillirin as someone important, a messenger.
Meanwhile the Mireces crowns Corvus as their new King. The Mireces worship the Red Gods: The Dark Lady and Gosfath. These gods are all about blood and torture and all that good juicy stuff. Some thousand years ago the Mireces and their dark religion was cast out of Rilpor exiled to the mountains of Gilgoras, and they have a mission. The Gods are coming back to the human world, and want to take over Rilpor.
In Rilpor they worship the Light Gods: The Dancer (Light Lady) and the Fox God (trickster etc). But the Rilporian King, King Rastoph, is sick with mourning his late wife (who was killed in suspicious events), leaving the kingdom vulnerable for attack. And high persons in the kingdom’s own court are turning to follow the Dark Lady, and joining the cause of the Mireces.
Thanks to Rilillin’s knowledge of the Mireces, and to Dom’s vision, the Wolves and the Watchers have an idea of what the Mireces are up to, but will that help them save Rilporin from them?
The writing is good. It’s descriptive with only a couple of typos. The world Stephens has created is dark, brutal gory. It got lots of brutal and unforgettable scenes (everyone who’s read the book knows exactly which particular scene I’m thinking about here). This book is grimdark and comes with stuff like violence, rape, attempted rape, bodily mutilation and dismemberment. In a graphic way.
-
2017
I was prepared to love this book. It felt right up in my alley. But I didn't love it.
The concept in the book is great! Execution however is not. The book follows no less than ten different point of views, which is A LOT seeing that this book is not the longest one, my version being 485 pages long. The chapters are short and each chapters follows a different character. But in those short chapters not much is happening and the constant character swaps made it jumpy and it was difficult to get a real grasp of any of the characters or the plot.
nwilkin21's review against another edition
4.0
This is my first attempt at an in depth spoiler free review. Feedback is appreciated.
Premise - The Red Gods were exiled from the lands of Rilpor, Listre, and Krike. Nearly a thousand years have passed as the Red god plot their return to the lands of light. Only the various tribes of Mireces continue to worship the gods of blood. Following a cast of characters ranging from a Mireces slave to a Kings Councilor. The story unwinds through love, friendship and betrayal.
Characters - most important in my opinion are characters and while not too many stand out here there are 10 point of view characters. Of those 10 I only enjoyed four of them;
Rillirin - A slave to the King of the Mireces, she grows a lot througout her hardships. Dom - A Caléstar with a dark past. He has visions from the gods.
Durdil - The King of Rilpors bodyguard/councillor. I didnt care for him much at the beginning but he really shines halfway through.
Crys - A lifetime soldier in the Rilporan army. He gets tied up in the politics in the capital and befriends a prince early on.
I felt the rest never got developed and I honestly disliked the Mireces point of views.
The romances felt forced and I think the two major ones would have worked better if they just stayed friends.
Plot - There are a couple of major plot points that really hit the nail on the head (especially 30% through
Premise - The Red Gods were exiled from the lands of Rilpor, Listre, and Krike. Nearly a thousand years have passed as the Red god plot their return to the lands of light. Only the various tribes of Mireces continue to worship the gods of blood. Following a cast of characters ranging from a Mireces slave to a Kings Councilor. The story unwinds through love, friendship and betrayal.
Characters - most important in my opinion are characters and while not too many stand out here there are 10 point of view characters. Of those 10 I only enjoyed four of them;
Rillirin - A slave to the King of the Mireces, she grows a lot througout her hardships. Dom - A Caléstar with a dark past. He has visions from the gods.
Durdil - The King of Rilpors bodyguard/councillor. I didnt care for him much at the beginning but he really shines halfway through.
Crys - A lifetime soldier in the Rilporan army. He gets tied up in the politics in the capital and befriends a prince early on.
I felt the rest never got developed and I honestly disliked the Mireces point of views.
The romances felt forced and I think the two major ones would have worked better if they just stayed friends.
Plot - There are a couple of major plot points that really hit the nail on the head (especially 30% through
ddraumas's review
3.0
This book was very well written, however, it was a bit extreme for my liking. Also, I think that there were too many characters to follow the story fully. Some of the character's p.o.v were unneeded in my opinion, and it just made the story a bit hard to follow.
balefire's review
4.0
4* I really enjoyed this book the plot was different concentrated on dark gods and their followers for a change, but still with some focus on the people fighting against the evil. I had trouble in the second half of the book keeping track of who was where but it all came together nicely in the end and left off with a nice gateway into the next book. From the reviews I read before starting this book I was expecting blood and guts and vile things I was mostly correct in that sense. The battles and fighting was very well described and it was pure bloody carnage in the end.
The red gods are rising indeed.
The red gods are rising indeed.
lindzy's review
5.0
Full review here
There was a spell last year where there were a lot of good fantasy books released. I’m sad that it took me so long to get to Godblind. I’m not sure I’ve ever consciously made the choice to not read another review book afterwards because I knew it wouldn’t compare. This played with my emotions on so many levels.
It was dark, gritty, gory, suspenseful and gripping as heck!
Ultimately, it is a story of good versus evil. There are the good guys, whose Gods are about flowers and dancing and light. Then there are the bad guys, whose Gods thrive off pain, blood and terror. Cliché, in a way, but the narration unfolds in such a way you never think that.
This is not a book for the faint-hearted. The entire plot is one consistent battle pretty much, and there are a few moments where I winced. The descriptions of the violence in a couple of places – mainly when a sacrifice was taking place – were so powerful it was hard not to visibly react. This doesn’t happen enough to put you off, but if you really can’t deal with that sort of thing, be warned!
From the beginning, the reader is aware that the “bad” Gods appear to be real. What I loved, however, is that this is not one-sided. These aren’t people clinging to old beliefs – their Gods do communicate with them.
It’s not only the Gods who are real: the world is a complicated, intricate one. I thoroughly enjoyed the world-building and it worked effectively to draw you in.
The book is fast-paced and while that is partly because of the effective tension building, it’s also because of the constant switching narrators. There are several characters we get to follow. It meant I didn’t always feel I got to know the characters as well as I would have liked, but it worked. It also meant that it took a while before I had a grip on who was who; who was a hero, who was a traitor and who just wanted to survive. All of the characters were engaging and either likeable or were so easy to hate it was just as enjoyable.
Crys and Rillirin were my favourites in terms of development. Rillirin was an escaped slave finally learning to live and love again. Crys was a bored soldier who ended up in the thick of things and learnt quite a bit about himself along the way. They were hardly recognisable from the characters we are first introduced to at the start of the book.
There are too many characters to go into them all in depth. Some surprised me – and not always in a good way. I was so engaged with the characters and their welfare, however, that I couldn’t put the book down. I was actually yelling at it by the end, and just knew it was going to end on a cliffhanger.
A whirlwind of a read and a definite recommendation from me!
There was a spell last year where there were a lot of good fantasy books released. I’m sad that it took me so long to get to Godblind. I’m not sure I’ve ever consciously made the choice to not read another review book afterwards because I knew it wouldn’t compare. This played with my emotions on so many levels.
It was dark, gritty, gory, suspenseful and gripping as heck!
Ultimately, it is a story of good versus evil. There are the good guys, whose Gods are about flowers and dancing and light. Then there are the bad guys, whose Gods thrive off pain, blood and terror. Cliché, in a way, but the narration unfolds in such a way you never think that.
This is not a book for the faint-hearted. The entire plot is one consistent battle pretty much, and there are a few moments where I winced. The descriptions of the violence in a couple of places – mainly when a sacrifice was taking place – were so powerful it was hard not to visibly react. This doesn’t happen enough to put you off, but if you really can’t deal with that sort of thing, be warned!
From the beginning, the reader is aware that the “bad” Gods appear to be real. What I loved, however, is that this is not one-sided. These aren’t people clinging to old beliefs – their Gods do communicate with them.
It’s not only the Gods who are real: the world is a complicated, intricate one. I thoroughly enjoyed the world-building and it worked effectively to draw you in.
The book is fast-paced and while that is partly because of the effective tension building, it’s also because of the constant switching narrators. There are several characters we get to follow. It meant I didn’t always feel I got to know the characters as well as I would have liked, but it worked. It also meant that it took a while before I had a grip on who was who; who was a hero, who was a traitor and who just wanted to survive. All of the characters were engaging and either likeable or were so easy to hate it was just as enjoyable.
Crys and Rillirin were my favourites in terms of development. Rillirin was an escaped slave finally learning to live and love again. Crys was a bored soldier who ended up in the thick of things and learnt quite a bit about himself along the way. They were hardly recognisable from the characters we are first introduced to at the start of the book.
There are too many characters to go into them all in depth. Some surprised me – and not always in a good way. I was so engaged with the characters and their welfare, however, that I couldn’t put the book down. I was actually yelling at it by the end, and just knew it was going to end on a cliffhanger.
A whirlwind of a read and a definite recommendation from me!
seraphina31's review against another edition
4.0
The only reason this is not a five star book for me is all the fight scenes. I like some but the second half of this book is all fight scenes, detailed and gory! Besides that this is actually a really great book. Loved all the characters, for me they were interesting and fun to follow. This does however end on quite a cliffhanger and somewhat feels like a prequel to the acutal series if that makes sense.
Definitely pick this up if you are into the grim dark genre and love fight sequences! If this is not your cup of tea, I'd pass this on along and read something different.
Definitely pick this up if you are into the grim dark genre and love fight sequences! If this is not your cup of tea, I'd pass this on along and read something different.
trystonwebb's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0