A review by rg9400
Of Blood And Fire by Ryan Cahill

adventurous slow-paced

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

3.0

I can see the potential in this series, but if I were to judge book 1 in a vacuum, I struggled with a variety of elements. First, the pacing is pretty slow. It might not feel that way for people coming from some of the more long-winded epic fantasy series, but for me, I found a lot of wasted time spent travelling from point A to point B without the sort of character work that made it more meaningful. Which leads me to my second criticism. The characters are, at this point, not particularly deep, nuanced, or unique. I think part of the problem is that the book as a whole seems to be pulling from some classical fantasy tropes, so our main protagonist is the standard farmboy MC in this book.  I was also a bit disappointed to see no real female characters (there is one, but she's given very little focus overall). The book focus seems to be more on plot and worldbuilding than characters and themes. A lot of this may not sound like negatives to people because it definitely feels like it's following in the footsteps of classic epic fantasy. That's just not really my cup of tea.

However. HOWEVER. I found the worldbuilding interesting enough, and I trust reviewers who swear by this series (like Petrik Leo and Esmay Rosalyne). Because of that, I will continue on with the series and hope to see some large improvements in these areas.