A review by wardenred
The Maleficent Seven by Cameron Johnston

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

3.5

No heroes were coming to their aid. So now, she was forced to turn to her old, dread monsters to save her world.

This book has an absolutely kickass premise: former big damn villains band together for one last job—to deal with an organization of religious fanatics who are far worse than necromancers, demonologists, vampires, and pirate queens. When there are no heroes willing to tackle the new evil, why not turn to monsters instead, right?

I was really excited for this story, especially since it started off pretty strong. The prologue painted a vivid and intriguing picture of the “before.“ The first appearance of the fanatics showcased their horribleness nicely. The scene where Dalia sought out Maven to start the process of getting the gang back together was so well done, with great dialogue, hints of dark humor, twists woven neatly into the narrative—it had it all. My excitement just kept growing.

And then the rest of the book happened. :(

I don’t mean to say it was all terrible or anything, but really, so few parts of the book live up fully to its own beginning. The obligatory “getting everyone together one by one“ part dragged something awful. I usually like these parts in such stories! I loved the same part in The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, and in Kings of the Wyld, and in Sarah Beth Durst’s The Bone Maker. Here, I just couldn’t wait for it to end and the real action start. The problem for me was, I think, that while the villainous characters coming together were fun, each of them separately, the dynamic between them just didn’t give those “we used to share everything, then we ended up far apart, now we’re coming back together as changed people with the same old habits“ vibes the other book I’ve mentioned have in abundance. Yes, there were occasional mentions of past exploits, but the way the characters acted and talked, they could as well be just coming together for the first time.

The adventure itself definitely had its cool moments, but again, the interaction between characters was constantly lacking something to keep me invested. They were all cool and badass and evil to the core in ways that at the very least started out fun. But they just didn’t work together in the ways I expected them to. I suppose it actually makes sense, what with them being very definitely villains, not to be confused with vaguely well-meaning morally grey types. But I’m a fan of the “Even Evil Has Loved Ones“ trope, I wanted a corrupt, awful, villainous found family, lol.

It also didn’t help that the promised humor all but left the building before the first act was through, and there was so much violence that didn’t add anything to the story. Utterly repetitive scenes that seemingly existed only to remind me that this was a grimdark book. Very dark. Much grim. Just in case I was beginning to have any doubts, you know.

Amidst all this, there was some cool action, some fun character moments, and some really excellent worldbuilding. I liked all the demonology a lot. But, eh. The beginning set too high a standard, and now I kind of really, really want to read the book I thought this one would be. Not enough to commit to writing it myself, though. Definitely not enough. Not going to even go there. Don’t ask me why I’m keeping my fingers crossed, it’s none of your business.
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