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A review by tashasbookishcorner
Critical Role: The Mighty Nein — The Nine Eyes of Lucien by Madeleine Roux
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
3.0
Favourite Character: Lucien
I have to be honest, whilst I have some knowledge of the plots and characters in critical role I haven't actually listened to it. I was hoping this book would be a good introduction/alternative choice for people who don't want to listen to long episodes. It was not. It definitely assumes you know the world and plot well, whereas a lot of tie in media I've read works on its own. So I was pretty lost for about the last quarter of the book. It just seemed to be skipping over bits, going really quickly, presumly the parts that were covered in the show. Even if I had listened to the show and knew what was going on I would have found it quite annoying and bitty.
The backstory on Lucien was intriguing and I really enjoyed the found family with Brevyn and Cree. I also enjoyed his dynamic with Molly, although I'm slightly baffled at the desicion to put many of those conversations in the footnotes. That being said it felt like parts of that were also dealt with too quickly, particularly his time in the claret orders. It pretty much skips over his desicion to join and training, it felt like more of the book should have been spent on this as I would have liked to find out more about the claret orders. Reading other reviews here it sounds like that wasn't particularly gone into in the show either which makes it all the more confusing.
I liked the world and Aeor was an interesting location but again, feels like you needed to be familar with the world. Would it really have hurt to spend a couple of pages talking about Aeor's history and how it fell?
Overall I was a bit disappointed in this book. Maybe that's my fault for assuming it could be read as a standalone. The pacing just felt off to me and parts could have done with being expanded on, although it was still an interesting world with fun characters.
I have to be honest, whilst I have some knowledge of the plots and characters in critical role I haven't actually listened to it. I was hoping this book would be a good introduction/alternative choice for people who don't want to listen to long episodes. It was not. It definitely assumes you know the world and plot well, whereas a lot of tie in media I've read works on its own. So I was pretty lost for about the last quarter of the book. It just seemed to be skipping over bits, going really quickly, presumly the parts that were covered in the show. Even if I had listened to the show and knew what was going on I would have found it quite annoying and bitty.
The backstory on Lucien was intriguing and I really enjoyed the found family with Brevyn and Cree. I also enjoyed his dynamic with Molly, although I'm slightly baffled at the desicion to put many of those conversations in the footnotes. That being said it felt like parts of that were also dealt with too quickly, particularly his time in the claret orders. It pretty much skips over his desicion to join and training, it felt like more of the book should have been spent on this as I would have liked to find out more about the claret orders. Reading other reviews here it sounds like that wasn't particularly gone into in the show either which makes it all the more confusing.
I liked the world and Aeor was an interesting location but again, feels like you needed to be familar with the world. Would it really have hurt to spend a couple of pages talking about Aeor's history and how it fell?
Overall I was a bit disappointed in this book. Maybe that's my fault for assuming it could be read as a standalone. The pacing just felt off to me and parts could have done with being expanded on, although it was still an interesting world with fun characters.