A review by tacoshark
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I found this, for the most part, very successful and engrossing. The universe building is very impressive and the authors really managed to keep all the plates spinning - the slight trade off, I think, was in the character development of the main characters. I think I would have liked this better if there had only been a few POV characters instead of nearly a dozen (and some of ten really got short shrift). Oddly, giving some of them POV sections and chapters was worse for their development because especially for some of the less frequent POVs, they all had a very similar feel, whereas from the more central characters’ perspective, they were more individual. Dafyd was the most interesting character by far, so I think focusing more on his POV would have been much better. Anyway, aside from that, this was pretty interesting and well constructed and it resolved in such a way that I intend to continue with the series (which I wasn’t sure of, at times). Overall, very solid and a promising start.