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A review by carlitos95
The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence
3.0
Book 1: Delightful
Book 2: Wait, what's going on and why should I care?
Okay, this one is on me a little bit, but it's also not entirely on me. It's been exactly a year since I read the first one, but even with an extensive recap of events at the start of this, Marky Mark still didn't manage to bring me back up to speed before throwing me into this intricately plotted bowl of confusion.
People have called these books character-driven, and I'd heavily dispute that. They are a very solid attempt at literary fantasy where theme is the driving force and characters are vessels. But he's also going for plot and "action" here. And while he succeeded in the first one, this one for me felt like treading the same ground in terms of what he's exploring. However, he delved more into slavery, privilege and class divides here and that subplot with a brand new POV worked wonderfully for me! Along with his typically marvelous prose; he's very quotable. His disregard for genre conventions is also great!
However, I found the returning POVs to be quite uninteresting here. Livira was the standout from Book 1, and Evar was a little bland but with a compelling plot. Here, it was a struggle to recall the intricacies of Livira's circumstances so you have to play catch-up, and Evar was no more interesting and with a less than compelling plot. It was just a lot of running around. Although the connective tissue did start to coalesce and I enjoyed that.
I found it less balanced in its elements than some of his best stuff (including the first book or Broken Empire). It sometimes gets lost in the pursuit of theme. This happens in literary fiction (and sci-fi), where the idea, or the important thing to be said, takes over and you're left with; "why do I care about these people in this story?"
He's mastered character with theme as foundation before, so I have faith in Book 3 weaving it back together.
But perhaps Book 1 could have been a standalone.
Book 2: Wait, what's going on and why should I care?
Okay, this one is on me a little bit, but it's also not entirely on me. It's been exactly a year since I read the first one, but even with an extensive recap of events at the start of this, Marky Mark still didn't manage to bring me back up to speed before throwing me into this intricately plotted bowl of confusion.
People have called these books character-driven, and I'd heavily dispute that. They are a very solid attempt at literary fantasy where theme is the driving force and characters are vessels. But he's also going for plot and "action" here. And while he succeeded in the first one, this one for me felt like treading the same ground in terms of what he's exploring. However, he delved more into slavery, privilege and class divides here and that subplot with a brand new POV worked wonderfully for me! Along with his typically marvelous prose; he's very quotable. His disregard for genre conventions is also great!
However, I found the returning POVs to be quite uninteresting here. Livira was the standout from Book 1, and Evar was a little bland but with a compelling plot. Here, it was a struggle to recall the intricacies of Livira's circumstances so you have to play catch-up, and Evar was no more interesting and with a less than compelling plot. It was just a lot of running around. Although the connective tissue did start to coalesce and I enjoyed that.
I found it less balanced in its elements than some of his best stuff (including the first book or Broken Empire). It sometimes gets lost in the pursuit of theme. This happens in literary fiction (and sci-fi), where the idea, or the important thing to be said, takes over and you're left with; "why do I care about these people in this story?"
He's mastered character with theme as foundation before, so I have faith in Book 3 weaving it back together.
But perhaps Book 1 could have been a standalone.