A review by zeph1337
Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher

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

4.0

This might be a more difficult one to unravel but I have quite a few thoughts, so let’s get one with it. First off this was a well crafted and very good book but I definitely had my issues with it and they were ranging from a little annoying to very unnerving and sometimes completely immersion breaking. 

This book is dark and saying just that feels like an understatement. Like I thought I knew what the Grim Dark Fantasy subgenre meant but apparently I have no idea. Compare this to “the flagship of the genre” The First Law and yeah First Law feels tame in comparison.

This darkness is very prevalent throughout this book's worldbuilding and its magic system based on mental illness, psychosis and other forms of delusions (which is quite frankly put: very insane!) but especially comes through with its characters. And while they certainly, within one book, don’t have the depth as my favorite First Law characters, they are very well crafted, interesting and just a joy to follow along with. 

They are all evil in some way (well I guess except one) and kind of have very few redeeming qualities about them. You certainly wouldn’t wanna meet any of them in real life that’s for sure. It does create very compelling dynamics though mainly within our core group which consists of three outlaws that kind of tolerate/like each other but more or less secretly (and openly!) hate and crap on each other constantly! Yes they are unlikeable pricks but also this constant bantering is a source for a lot of this series' very dark and dry humor. 

I also feel like that this humor is kind of needed as it somewhat distracts from all the violent, disturbing and gross shit that keeps happening around you. I will probably add some trigger warnings to this review but I feel like stuff like that is more easily tolerable in a Fantasy book but there were certainly parts of it that felt discomforting as fuck but you also can’t help but feel engaged by it. It really managed to walk this small slope of really unsettling while also being deeply fascinating that you can’t really look away / stop reading.

Now let’s get to my major gripe which also is the main reason why I am not giving this book 5 stars as it just put a major dent in my enjoyment (sometimes): The use of the German language. Let me explain. Every character name, every place and pretty much every term within the magic system uses German words or expressions. As a native German speaker some of it was good but when it was not it usually took me completely out of it where my mind just focussed on some weird stringing together of words I know but that don’t really make sense in the context. 

I was doing this as part of a buddy read and other non German speakers said that this actually added to the flavor as the harsh sounds of German words fit with the atmosphere and while that totally makes sense to me on an intellectual level it still ended up as occasionally immersion breaking on the emotional level. 

Apparently I also have an older edition of the book because in newer versions there is a disclaimer added in the beginning where the author apologizes for the butchering of the language. (I think it was his first book and because of that he just didn’t expect for any German speaker to ever read it xD) But honestly I don’t even think that would have helped because I was made aware of this disclaimer pretty early within my read and still these moments of immersion breaking kept occurring sometimes and it just kind of took something away from the whole experience. 

I was told that the German translation should fix the issues for German speaking readers and I think I will try that out for the next book in the series even though I usually don’t like translations very much but this just seems to be a special case where it might even be needed. So yeah I certainly intend to continue with the series.  
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