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hawkeyegonzalez 's review for:
Blood Song
by Anthony Ryan
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I'd have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this first entry in the Raven's Shadow trilogy. I enjoyed Ryan's storytelling style with the time jumps being easy to follow but very effective.
The story itself is slow-paced but never boring. It follows Vaelin through his time training to be a brother of the Sixth Order to his various campaigns in service to the king and to the Order. Each location has interesting events happen that help the characters grow, all the while teasing a greater threat to come in later books. It's very well done.
Most of the characters are also interesting. Vaelin's band of brothers are each unique in their own way and are quite compelling to follow. Oddly enough, it's actually Vaelin who is the weak link here. While he's a good character himself, he's a little too good at everything. He succeeds at virtually everything he tries to accomplish, oftentimes with relative ease. It makes his character a little boring sometimes.
Overall, this is an excellent start to a series. Unfortunately, everyone I know who has read the rest says the series falls off a cliff after this, so I'm not looking forward to the rest. But I will give it a shot and see for myself.
The story itself is slow-paced but never boring. It follows Vaelin through his time training to be a brother of the Sixth Order to his various campaigns in service to the king and to the Order. Each location has interesting events happen that help the characters grow, all the while teasing a greater threat to come in later books. It's very well done.
Most of the characters are also interesting. Vaelin's band of brothers are each unique in their own way and are quite compelling to follow. Oddly enough, it's actually Vaelin who is the weak link here. While he's a good character himself, he's a little too good at everything. He succeeds at virtually everything he tries to accomplish, oftentimes with relative ease. It makes his character a little boring sometimes.
Overall, this is an excellent start to a series. Unfortunately, everyone I know who has read the rest says the series falls off a cliff after this, so I'm not looking forward to the rest. But I will give it a shot and see for myself.