Reviews tagging 'Death'

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. Parker

7 reviews

meecespieces's review

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, and War

galharrow's review against another edition

adventurous funny sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: War, Death, and Racism

Minor: Suicide and Genocide

jesticulate's review

dark funny

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Blood, Death, Murder, Violence, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, and War

mandkips's review

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Death

Moderate: Violence, Cursing, and Misogyny

Minor: Sexism and Racism

elizabeth_lepore's review

adventurous funny fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Slavery, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Misogyny, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Colonisation and Infidelity

inka_z's review

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Sexism, Violence, and War

flying_monkey's review

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is a workmanlike humorous (if not necessarily actually funny) fantasy novel by humorous (if not necessarily actually funny) fantasy novelist, Tom Holt, writing under a pseudonym, the need for which I don't quite understand - but then I never found Holt actually funny so perhaps he wanted to attract a new audience. It's a first-person narrative of an ethnic outsider in a powerful empire, who has overcome prejudice and poverty to be the Colonel-in-Chief of the imperial engineers. By his own account he is a coward who gets by on his brains and, as they song goes, with a little help from his friends. Anyway, he ends up in the imperial capital as it comes under siege by powerful forces unknown to anyone, and has to resort to every physical and social engineering tactic, ruse and scheme to defend the city. The writing is breezy, the characterisation and worldbuilding perfunctory at best, and it slips down without touching the sides. It is, as a result, really annoying and throughout I was reminded very strongly of a much better humorous (but this time actually funny) unreliable narrator story and couldn't think what it was - and then about 2/3 of the way through I remembered - it was the Murderbot novellas by Martha Wells. Yes, this novel's narration is like a vastly inferior fantasy version of Wells. Anyway, people who like this kind of thing will like this novel, especially if you're into engineering or are someone whose idea of a good time is reading about historical siege technologies. It's not bad.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Violence