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tezzarudge's review
2.0
Really struggled to follow at the start, but then just didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would.
rosekelly96's review
Disjointed writing. The world building has potential but further explanation is warranted. Poor grammar at points outside of dialogue, which is unfortunate and misplaced.
rhysciar's review
5.0
I'm having a hard time summarizing this book, and I don't know why. It was a really good book, I enjoyed it immensely.
So we got our main hero, Teyr. She is a merchant of some sort, a former soldier, who has a dream: to build a road in a clan-filled land. This road would help the clans greatly. Trading and travelling would be easier, and of course, it could give stability to the land.
But of course nothing is as easy as it seems. There is a warlord in the land, who is terrorizing everyone, and he doesn't want to do anything with this road. And perhaps there are some things that happen in the book which makes him really angry at Teyr.
Anyway, this is what an action packed novel is about. Something is always happening. There's fights, there's deaths - oh but how many... -, and there are twists you can't be prepared for. So I would say this book is not for the faint hearted.
Teyr is in fact a badass character. Her fighting is clever, she is strong, she is angry, but most importantly she is human. And for humans, she can fu*k up everything, and this I loved about this book. While the novel sticks to some tropes, but because of Teyr, you can never be sure of what will happen. You shouldn't as well.
The focus is on the 'magic system'. As far as I can say, magic is nothing but different brews, potions as anybody would say. You patch up some herbs, plants, you mix them up, and bam, you got different kinds of potions. You have fightbrews, which make you stronger, faster; you have healing brews; you have some stuff that makes you see better at night - this whole system reminded me of videogames, where you ease your fight with whatever you can.
Only Selby could have explained them better. I mean there's this mist hanging over the book, which makes the whole story feels like some old myth, and I guess it could have been his idea from the beginning, but it feels a little off.
Not that the world itself wouldn't be interesting. It's fascinating, it's fantastic! Though I do love the idea of clans and barbarians, so this world appealed to me. And there are the Oskoro, whom I have no idea who or what they are really - and because Selby doesn't really explain them to us, it's the better. I imagined them as humans who meddled with plants and magic for far too deep, and live as a symbiosis. I imagine they look like half plants and half humans?
And this is not the only question I have. This book surprisingly had some deep thoughts - like for instanse what should you do with your life; what is happiness; what does family means to you; what does death mean to you; how do you cope with death. Surprisingly, because who knew that a 'simple' fantasy novel could have these topics embedded within itself? It made me thinking for days, and I cannot emphasize how great an experience is that!
So this is a great book. I can't really say anything bad for it, becaused I loved it. I understand this is not a series, but Selby's other books, Snakewood and the upcoming Brother Red are taking place in the same universe, in the same land as this. So I have to move up these books in my TBR, because I have to know what will happen in these lands, and if they are half as good as this was, than I'm up for a treat!
So we got our main hero, Teyr. She is a merchant of some sort, a former soldier, who has a dream: to build a road in a clan-filled land. This road would help the clans greatly. Trading and travelling would be easier, and of course, it could give stability to the land.
But of course nothing is as easy as it seems. There is a warlord in the land, who is terrorizing everyone, and he doesn't want to do anything with this road. And perhaps there are some things that happen in the book which makes him really angry at Teyr.
Anyway, this is what an action packed novel is about. Something is always happening. There's fights, there's deaths - oh but how many... -, and there are twists you can't be prepared for. So I would say this book is not for the faint hearted.
Teyr is in fact a badass character. Her fighting is clever, she is strong, she is angry, but most importantly she is human. And for humans, she can fu*k up everything, and this I loved about this book. While the novel sticks to some tropes, but because of Teyr, you can never be sure of what will happen. You shouldn't as well.
The focus is on the 'magic system'. As far as I can say, magic is nothing but different brews, potions as anybody would say. You patch up some herbs, plants, you mix them up, and bam, you got different kinds of potions. You have fightbrews, which make you stronger, faster; you have healing brews; you have some stuff that makes you see better at night - this whole system reminded me of videogames, where you ease your fight with whatever you can.
Only Selby could have explained them better. I mean there's this mist hanging over the book, which makes the whole story feels like some old myth, and I guess it could have been his idea from the beginning, but it feels a little off.
Not that the world itself wouldn't be interesting. It's fascinating, it's fantastic! Though I do love the idea of clans and barbarians, so this world appealed to me. And there are the Oskoro, whom I have no idea who or what they are really - and because Selby doesn't really explain them to us, it's the better. I imagined them as humans who meddled with plants and magic for far too deep, and live as a symbiosis. I imagine they look like half plants and half humans?
And this is not the only question I have. This book surprisingly had some deep thoughts - like for instanse what should you do with your life; what is happiness; what does family means to you; what does death mean to you; how do you cope with death. Surprisingly, because who knew that a 'simple' fantasy novel could have these topics embedded within itself? It made me thinking for days, and I cannot emphasize how great an experience is that!
So this is a great book. I can't really say anything bad for it, becaused I loved it. I understand this is not a series, but Selby's other books, Snakewood and the upcoming Brother Red are taking place in the same universe, in the same land as this. So I have to move up these books in my TBR, because I have to know what will happen in these lands, and if they are half as good as this was, than I'm up for a treat!
anti_formalist12's review against another edition
1.0
Too much pidgin language turns me off right away.
frogggirl2's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
I dislike the purposefully uneven, stilted writing style. When you drop me into a fight scene without introducing the character or setting up the scene, I don't care about the fight. Insufficient world building throughout - including what fantasy terms mean. Insufficient characterization - only the main character is at all fleshed out. Since I'm given no reason to care about most characters, these endless fight scenes are just interminable. 50 pages of letters at the end don't fit with the rest of the book and aren't really necessary. Overall, a tedious, grim, slow slog of a reading experience.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Violence, Torture, Child death, Drug abuse, and Suicide
jefffrane's review
5.0
It's a very demanding read, but the reward is tremendous. Selby drops the reader into his imagined world with few reference points and virtually no exposition. The language of the characters is unusual and difficult to follow, there are jolting transitions in time and exhausting violence and pain. It's just really good and creative writing that pulls the reader into the protagonist's mind and drags us along. I had my doubts for a number of pages because I felt lost in this place and among these people but once I stopped worrying about explanations and let the story carry me along I could not put The Winter Road down, not even after the final pages--it was still stuck in my head. I don't know where Adrian Selby came from but I really hope he sticks around.
rayn0n's review
5.0
I cannot believe this book took me almost three years to read and still managed to turn me around into being genuinely invested by the end. It wasn't necessarily the world-building that bigged me down so much as how l o n g some of those chapters in the first part are, that one is over 40 pages! I'm no good with fantasy politics and geography but the characters still had enough meat on them that I got really invested, their plughts resonated with me without becoming the sort of story where the stakes are so high it burns me out. The way they use magic, natural, fairly subtle for the most part, was really interesting and the entire fight brew system was FASCINATING. Really drew me in from the beginning. Tbh, if I hadn't looked up the author I wouldn't have believed it was written by a man, Selby avoids all the pitfalls that makes men writing from the perspective of women so overt and painful and when I tell you I was shocked that the narrator was a woman in those first couple chapters. I was fully prepared to sit through a fantasy adventure expecting it to be a company of mostly men, given the theme of feudal mercenaries, and I'm a little ashamed of my prejudice. I'm glad it was Teyr, I suppose is what I'm saying, and Selby did a fantastic job building a world that broke out of a lot of the stereotypes and gender roles the fantasy genre generally leans into without making it an overt statement on anything, it's exactly everything I could've hoped it to be without having any idea what I was getting myself into, picking this book up at the beginning of the Pandemic because I was on a viking kick and this looked appropriately viking-ish.
book_reading_billy44's review
4.0
The Winter Road. Spoiler Free Review.
https://youtu.be/n_CtLuCeaj8
A grim dark book with very little light relief. An unusual layout for a book as well. Enjoyed it, it won’t be for everyone.
https://youtu.be/n_CtLuCeaj8
A grim dark book with very little light relief. An unusual layout for a book as well. Enjoyed it, it won’t be for everyone.
ink_and_pages_'s review
5.0
I really enjoyed reading this book, it was great to have a complete story in one novel and found the pacing was reflective of that, having less time to mess around or for the story to be padded out.
Here's what I loved:
Harsh world
Brutal really well written fight scenes
Emotional, driven, well-formed characters
The magic system based around plants/nature
The Oskoro (will check spelling)
Well done history for the characters
Pacing of the story
The letters (they could've been their own book/series of books)
The writing style, although took a little to get into with the 'lingo'
The fact the author took the time with emotional scenes and also little touches throughout the book that included the depth to the world and the characters we follow in the story.
I read this over my holidays and found myself thinking about it when not reading which to me is a great thing. Just overall very impressed with this book. I read a lot of "grimdark" novels and this one pleasantly surprised me. It was 'grimdark' but also full of heart too.
Highly recommend!
Here's what I loved:
Harsh world
Brutal really well written fight scenes
Emotional, driven, well-formed characters
The magic system based around plants/nature
The Oskoro (will check spelling)
Well done history for the characters
Pacing of the story
The letters (they could've been their own book/series of books)
The writing style, although took a little to get into with the 'lingo'
The fact the author took the time with emotional scenes and also little touches throughout the book that included the depth to the world and the characters we follow in the story.
I read this over my holidays and found myself thinking about it when not reading which to me is a great thing. Just overall very impressed with this book. I read a lot of "grimdark" novels and this one pleasantly surprised me. It was 'grimdark' but also full of heart too.
Highly recommend!
thero159's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0