A review by ergative
Bitterwood by Rowan Speedwell

1.25

Maybe I'm a little harsh with this, but the rating reflects my reaction, rather than any inherent evaluation of objective quality. See, this book was recommended in a list of really great indy published SFF specifically as an example of well-written court politics. I have read indy published books before, DNFed some of them, and for all of them I'm usually quite disappointed relative to the quality of traditionally published books. I don't want to be making overbroad generalizations about indy vs. traditional publishing--and goodness knows there are some real stinkers of trad published books too -- but let's just say my reading  makes it very clear to my how valuable professional editing is. I'm aware of the problems in traditional publishing! I want to invest in alternative means of distributing SFF! And I know from my time on AO3 that amateur or non-established writers can be superb at what they do. But I have yet to see indy publishing show itself capable of truly competing with what trad publishing can turn out. Here, the plot was thin, the characters one-dimensional, the world-building ad-hoc, and the quest itself felt arbitrary and contrived. This was just not a very good book. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, either. And to have it presented to me as an example of excellence in indy publishing brings down the entire collective phenomenon that I super duper want to support and value.