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careless 's review for:
Blood Song
by Anthony Ryan
fairly solid entry to the ‘boy becomes elite soldier through state-sanctioned child abuse and ~magic~ in a gritty fantasy setting’ canon.
the author has a deft hand with information reveals. he seeds information so the reader discovers things at the same time as his characters. and while the 'hero tells his tale to a scribe' trope is well-trodden there is a fun twist to it in this case.
but it's a book of two halves. the first half builds quite nicely with that coming-of-age story but then it's... all over the place, tbh. characters are summoned from implausible distance because they're needed for a scene. subplots are remembered and tied up almost by chance. plus, standard for the genre, the female characters leave a lot to be desired. there is one particularly egregious sexy lamp and the 'romance' plot had me fully scratching my head.
not terrible, but looking at the reviews of the rest of the series I might take a miss.
the author has a deft hand with information reveals. he seeds information so the reader discovers things at the same time as his characters. and while the 'hero tells his tale to a scribe' trope is well-trodden there is a fun twist to it in this case.
but it's a book of two halves. the first half builds quite nicely with that coming-of-age story but then it's... all over the place, tbh. characters are summoned from implausible distance because they're needed for a scene. subplots are remembered and tied up almost by chance. plus, standard for the genre, the female characters leave a lot to be desired. there is one particularly egregious sexy lamp and the 'romance' plot had me fully scratching my head.
not terrible, but looking at the reviews of the rest of the series I might take a miss.