Take a photo of a barcode or cover
andrewbenesh1 's review for:
Tome of the Undergates
by Sam Sykes
To give a proper review of this book, I need to provide two pieces of context.
First, a week before DragonCon 2017, I realized that I was excited about getting to meet Sam Sykes but hadn't read any of his books. In shame, I asked him for a recommendation of a book I could finish in a week. And so he directed me to An Affinity for Steel.
Second, I have in the past found myself struggling with traditional fantasy novels. And frankly, that raised some concerns for me about what I was about to read.
Cautiously, I proceeded to "Tome of the Undergates", the first of three books in the Affinity for Steel series. I found myself pleasantly surprised. The novel manages to balance humor and deconstruction of fantasy tropes well with attention to characters and progressive world building. It doesn't get too caught up in it's own grandiosity - there are no epic songs explaining detailed ancient history, chapter-long depictions of buffets, or arbitrarily complicated systems of titles and naming. But perhaps most importantly, it's fun. And you can tell that the author is having fun writing it ("With dexterity better befitting a murderous squirrel...").
The dialogue is one of the strongest points in the book. The characters voices - both internal and external - are well developed and distinct from one another. While grounded in traditional fantasy roles, they don't feel like mass produced copies. Even the most terse character - Gariath - has a well articulated perspective and worldview that's more than just "I'm an angry monster". By developing his character's voices, Sykes is able to craft interesting relationships between his characters, which in turn provide much of the real conflict in the story. There are some areas where the dialogue is a bit distracting - the pirates are weirdly articulate in comparison to the priests and captains - but these still provide a lot of fun to the reader.
My two criticisms of the book are in it's pacing and organization. At times it feels like we spend too much time without major plot progression. This particularly evident in the first part of the book, with a naval battle that feels like it never ends. The battle does do a good job setting up the characters and initial premise, but feels tedious at some points. When the story moves, it moves quickly, and so the developmental interludes feel a little sluggish. Regarding organization, I wish we'd been shown more of the loss that defines these characters early on. Readers might see these criticisms not so much as complaints as reassurance that there is a payoff for the slower moments.
Overall, Tome is a promising first entry. It takes the difficult task of setting up an extended world and conflicted characters while maintaining a sense of humor. I'll definitely be back for book number 2.
First, a week before DragonCon 2017, I realized that I was excited about getting to meet Sam Sykes but hadn't read any of his books. In shame, I asked him for a recommendation of a book I could finish in a week. And so he directed me to An Affinity for Steel.
Second, I have in the past found myself struggling with traditional fantasy novels. And frankly, that raised some concerns for me about what I was about to read.
Cautiously, I proceeded to "Tome of the Undergates", the first of three books in the Affinity for Steel series. I found myself pleasantly surprised. The novel manages to balance humor and deconstruction of fantasy tropes well with attention to characters and progressive world building. It doesn't get too caught up in it's own grandiosity - there are no epic songs explaining detailed ancient history, chapter-long depictions of buffets, or arbitrarily complicated systems of titles and naming. But perhaps most importantly, it's fun. And you can tell that the author is having fun writing it ("With dexterity better befitting a murderous squirrel...").
The dialogue is one of the strongest points in the book. The characters voices - both internal and external - are well developed and distinct from one another. While grounded in traditional fantasy roles, they don't feel like mass produced copies. Even the most terse character - Gariath - has a well articulated perspective and worldview that's more than just "I'm an angry monster". By developing his character's voices, Sykes is able to craft interesting relationships between his characters, which in turn provide much of the real conflict in the story. There are some areas where the dialogue is a bit distracting - the pirates are weirdly articulate in comparison to the priests and captains - but these still provide a lot of fun to the reader.
My two criticisms of the book are in it's pacing and organization. At times it feels like we spend too much time without major plot progression. This particularly evident in the first part of the book, with a naval battle that feels like it never ends. The battle does do a good job setting up the characters and initial premise, but feels tedious at some points. When the story moves, it moves quickly, and so the developmental interludes feel a little sluggish. Regarding organization, I wish we'd been shown more of the loss that defines these characters early on. Readers might see these criticisms not so much as complaints as reassurance that there is a payoff for the slower moments.
Overall, Tome is a promising first entry. It takes the difficult task of setting up an extended world and conflicted characters while maintaining a sense of humor. I'll definitely be back for book number 2.