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A review by wolfayal
Sword Dance by A.J. Demas
1.0
I really wanted to like this book but I wound up struggling to finish it.
Demas does an *excellent* job creating the historical setting and that's really the only part of the book I liked.
The plot with the students started promising but felt very cliche and stale to me.
The biggest problem for me were the main characters. I feel like a lot of potential was wasted.
Damiskos is *incredibly* bland and his tendency to speak in trailing off sentences and hesitant stutters grated on me quickly.
Varazda was slightly more enjoyable as he felt like he had a somewhat fleshed out character. That being said, his character relied on a lot of effeminate gay male stereotypes. The attempts to have him exploring gender roles were like getting smacked in the face with a brick and also came few and far between.
The romance itself reminded me of two teenagers falling in love and was badly handled. It felt very rushed and ham handed, a lot like a switch had been flipped and suddenly Damiskos was madly in love with Varazda. I am a fan of the love at first sight trope but it was botched badly here. Damiskos' hesitancy in his dialogue and his cobstant self belittling greatly tripped the romance up. I found myself skipping over the more feelsy scenes because it felt like someone smashing two action figures together and going "now kiss".
My last issue with this book is more of a minor complaint but I feel like the author really didn't research how being a eunuch affects a man's body. Varazda's muscled form keeps being brought up along with body hair and that's not observed in eunuchs. He should be closer in build to Varys from A Song of Ice and Fire: a little chubby and with a much more androgynous voice. Again this is minor a complaint and isme being picky.
Overall, come for the alternate history and not much else.
Demas does an *excellent* job creating the historical setting and that's really the only part of the book I liked.
The plot with the students started promising but felt very cliche and stale to me.
The biggest problem for me were the main characters. I feel like a lot of potential was wasted.
Damiskos is *incredibly* bland and his tendency to speak in trailing off sentences and hesitant stutters grated on me quickly.
Varazda was slightly more enjoyable as he felt like he had a somewhat fleshed out character. That being said, his character relied on a lot of effeminate gay male stereotypes. The attempts to have him exploring gender roles were like getting smacked in the face with a brick and also came few and far between.
The romance itself reminded me of two teenagers falling in love and was badly handled. It felt very rushed and ham handed, a lot like a switch had been flipped and suddenly Damiskos was madly in love with Varazda. I am a fan of the love at first sight trope but it was botched badly here. Damiskos' hesitancy in his dialogue and his cobstant self belittling greatly tripped the romance up. I found myself skipping over the more feelsy scenes because it felt like someone smashing two action figures together and going "now kiss".
My last issue with this book is more of a minor complaint but I feel like the author really didn't research how being a eunuch affects a man's body. Varazda's muscled form keeps being brought up along with body hair and that's not observed in eunuchs. He should be closer in build to Varys from A Song of Ice and Fire: a little chubby and with a much more androgynous voice. Again this is minor a complaint and isme being picky.
Overall, come for the alternate history and not much else.