Reviews

The Ember Blade by Chris Wooding

christopher_dilts's review against another edition

5.0

Wow! After a summer of mostly lacklustre reading, I burned through this 800-page book in less than a week. What an amazing find.

This book has it all: action, intrigue, politics, the unknown, romance, mystery and more. The scope and depth of this book was impressive, although admittedly it starts out a bit slow. Wooding does dark fantasy right. In fact, it was nice to see a fantasy novel with Game-of-Thrones-level of tone and concepts without excessively and flamboyantly using tropes of adult literature: incessant swearing, graphic sex, and overly descriptive violence. That being said, there are some adult concepts in this novel, but it feels like the thematic choices and development of the characters is supported and enhanced by these choices, which don't seem to be made arbitrarily.

I see this novel as a more contemporary Fellowship of the Ring, and Wooding's worldbuilding, characterization, and use of Lovecraftian horror to describe all the beasties in his story are impressive. Even some of the plot tics are similar to LoTR, and the dynamic progression of the protagonist is believable and authentic. 2023 isn't over, but I am confident this will be my favorite novel of the year. For any fantasy reader, read this book NOW.

shelly97's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.0

aij's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

xgongshowj03's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

3.5

gavinsko's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.25

jugglemisterer's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

ac_ish's review against another edition

adventurous

3.5

dhalse's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

isabellarobinson7's review against another edition

DNF at page 131 (16%)

Rating: 2 stars

Alright, I'm just completely bored with this book. I'm sure it gets better and whatever, but I just cannot be bother reading ~700 more pages to finish it. Plus, I got this book not long before my country went into another brief covid lockdown, so I couldn't go to the library, but now we are pretty much all out (RIP Auckland) and I can go back. Oh, and I got a whole bunch of books in the mail so I'm good now.

djinnetta's review against another edition

4.0

A pretty good homage to classical high fantasy. It's just a bit too long, though.