Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Pariah

Absolutely loved this! Not a 5 star because it could've been about 100 pages shorter, but I loved the story and I truly felt as if I were a part of the world. My first Anthony Ryan read and I'm definitely reading more!!

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intotheheartwyld's review

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dark slow-paced

2.0

Thank you Orbit and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Well lets just jump right into this. As we can all see I had a vastly different reaction to this story in comparison to others who have read this. This is actually my first full length novel by Anthony Ryan, but not my first foray into his writing, I am actually reading his novella series The Seven Swords, and I enjoy them. So I figured I would enjoy this as well since I had been wanting to read a longer story of his, but alas this did not work for me, this actually proved to me that I prefer his short story telling over his long.

To start, that tag line by Mr. Gwynne is full of lies and I say that in the nicest way possible. This was not full of vengeance and betrayal. This is why I do not read them and take them with a grain of salt.

The Pariah reads like its historical fiction and not fantasy, and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with historical fiction, I actually enjoy the genre, when I am in the mood for it, but this being pitched as fantasy with such minuscule feels of fantasy made it a tough read to get immersed into. I kept waiting for that fantastical element to pop up but nothing ever did. This lead to me being very bored with the story, it felt like it took ages to get through the chapters and I found myself more times then not becoming sleepy because it felt like so very little happening even though a lot was happening, it just wasn't presented in an engaging manner. Towards the end and I say this with all grace and honesty I started actively avoiding picking it up because I knew I was not enjoying it and could tell nothing was going to make this turn around for me. I even dropped my rating after finishing, I was originally leaning towards a 3.

The most frustrating bit for me comes from the fact that the story shifts drastically from how it starts out. When starting out you are lead to believe that this is going to be a tale of Alwyn getting revenge for his fallen outlaws, a betrayal of the deepest kind, and a tale of two men, a true king and false king fighting for control, and some how Alywn will become entwined in this, and part one even ends on this note. But once part two got going slowly that story-line started to fall to the wayside and the religious story-line with the Covenant, the Seraphile, the scourge and malecite took over and everything that part one set up, just feels completely lost and forgotten. Sure at times its mentioned that Alwyn still wants his revenge and a few moments are taken to bring that part of the story back into play but its very short lived and then quickly removed from the forefront again but even after awhile that stops.

I enjoyed the start of the tale immensely, all the moments of going through Alwyn being part of the outlaws was interesting and engaging. We learned how he came to be part of the crew, where he stood, what their punishments were like under the Outlaw king. The whole Outlaw king portion was so interesting and it ended way to quickly and it was set up to make you feel like it was important but it really wasn't, it was just filler to move the start of the story along, and that is so frustrating as it was the most interesting part. I wanted to know who betrayed who, and its of course reveled so far late in the story after having felt like it was forgetting about that I no longer cared, nor believed it when it was told yet Alywn was like "yup okay that checks out because now I'm more focused on being obsessed with Evadine" and then that's it for the revenge plot line.

I don't care for religious plots, so that in of itself was not interesting for me but I can handle it as a side plot, but in this tale it was slow, and felt dragged out and a lot of the time confusing, and its heavily focused on, its clearly the main plot, not the stuff that went on with the outlaw king.

The story is also told from Alwyn's pov in 1st person, and once again I am coming to conclusion that this style is my least favorite. It does nothing for the larger cast of characters. We only get to see one side of everyone because we are only seeing them through Alwyn's eyes and while they each had their own personalities none of them shined or stood out because they only acted one way, which was the way Alwyn claimed they acted. You never get to see their full reactions to any of the situations, you never get to see the more complex sides of any of them. I enjoyed the first meeting with Ayin, that was wild and unexpected, but aside from that nothing drew me to anyone. To add more frustration all of this led me to I feel nothing for anyone, some other reviews talk about the heartbreak this conjured and I being the sensitive little lady that I am, felt no heartbreak for anyone. The deaths felt flat, and some where mentioned in passing that you didn't get time to take them in, outside of that death is so prevalent that it left nothing to be hurt about.

The reason for the lower rating was the absolute off the wall and straight out of left field take on Alywn being in love with a certain character. This is just randomly thrown at you at the end with zero build up, zero evidence that it was ever a factor and its presented like it was always there. It was jarring, off putting and instantly grated on my nerves. I have a feeling what kind of "love" this is going to turn into, but the lack of build up to it makes it fall completely in the realm of "wtf".

The last bit is the magic.. at least I think its magic, its never really stated if there is or isn't magic. There is talk of witches with gifts, but of course they are heathens and its presented in manner that leads on to believe its just false rumors flying around. Evadine has visions.. The closest thing to magic that appears is all related to the Sack Witch and its not until the end that it starts to make you think "oh look there is magic in this world"

The good of this story falls into the writing, while it was long and at times exasperating it is the writing of someone who has clearly been doing this for a long time. It easy to picture what is going on based on descriptions and the battle/fight scenes are well thought out and constructed wonderfully. I'm not big into structure battlement fights, I find them boring and they are used in this and while I did not like them I can say they where written with knowledge and managed to portray what was happening. Although the world is kind of bland and boring, nothing new and exciting,

All in all, this just was not the story for me, and i'll probably not pick up book 2.

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queenmackenzie's review

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

This is my first Anthony Ryan book, and wow was I blown away! I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into it as the blurb is relatively vague (which I like, actually) and was initially worried it would be too grim for me. But it really didn’t take me long to fall in love with Alwyn and his storytelling, and I could tell from the first few chapters that this book was going to take me for a ride. As the blurb says, the story follows Alwyn, the bastard son of a prostitute who was taken in at a young age by famed outlaw Deckin Scarl, and thrives in that life until Deckin’s band comes under attack and Alwyn is forced to flee. This is as far into the plot that I will mention, because so much of the enjoyment of reading The Pariah comes from following Alwyn’s tale and wondering at upcoming twists. This is the first book in a while that took me entirely by surprise at several points, and I definitely wasn’t able to predict the ending.

‘I ask you, Scribe, what meaning is there to truth or lies in this world? As for blood, I have heard of you. I know your tale. History may judge me as monstrous, but you are a far bloodier man than I.’

The story is framed as Alwyn recording his life, often using ‘dear reader’ in his sentences and sometimes making reference to future events to further highlight the importance of those currently taking place. This is quite hard to do well, but Ryan was incredibly successful, and Alwyn has a really unique voice that swept me away in its storytelling. His characterisation is also perfectly balanced; he’s an outlaw, and he does many questionable things throughout the novel, yet he is also loyal to his friends and has a certain nobility to his character that makes him charming. It’s also hard to create a character who is skilful and succeeds at most things they do, without making them too perfect, and again I think that Ryan hit the balance really well. Alwyn is first an outlaw, then a scribe, and later a soldier, and at each new stage in his adventure he rises in the estimation of the leader of whichever group he is part of, and because of this learns new skills that make him even more essential in his role, but we do get to see the way he learns, rather than him picking up everything with ease. The rest of the characters, no matter how minor, are also given a lot of life, partly through the way Alwyn describes them, and it all added to the sense of reality this story has.

The setting of The Pariah is also fascinating: the duchies are ruled by a King, and during Alwyn’s story there is ongoing conflict between King Tomas and the pretender Magnis Lochlain, called the ‘True King’ by his followers. At the same time however, the main religion of Albermaine, the Covenant, is seeing an uprising, with people claiming the second Scourge is close at hand. Alwyn finds himself caught up in both these conflicts, and it’s really interesting how they intersect and come to be at odds. What Anthony Ryan does in The Pariah is probably the most interesting use of religion in a fantasy novel I have seen in quite a while – much of modern fantasy seems to use religion merely as an extra block in world building, applying modern scepticism so that none of the main characters truly believing any of it, but in Alwyn’s world there is true belief in the blessed Seraphile and the evil Malecite, and the first Scourge seems to have actually happened. It’s all incredibly fascinating, especially in the way everything is slowly introduced and then built up throughout the novel. I’m hoping we get to find out more about the religion and the other magic systems present in the world in the next book.

As you can tell, I really loved this book, and would say it has quite a few similar elements to John Gwynne’s books, as well as to Patrick Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind, so if you like those, you’ll definitely enjoy The Pariah. Really, I think that the narrative voice and the fast paced action will appeal to a lot of people, so I urge you to pick this up and give it a go!

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