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A review by carol26388
The Wandering Inn: Volume 2 by Pirateaba
3.0
This is book popcorn. If you enjoy traditional fantasy that has individual characters doing their individual things but sometimes getting caught up in big events, this will likely be right up your alley.
Warning: it's written as a high-output web serial, which means Pirateaba puts up a chapter twice a week, at some insane word count of like 10k a week. I use laptops, not tablets, which is absolutely not the way to read a gazillion-word book. Thanks to a kind friend, I read this in book form on my kindle, which is the only way I can really do it. I would be SO HAPPY to pay actual dollars for this to be formatted and published, so get on it, please.
This 'book' has a number of things happen to The Wandering Inn's Innkeeper, Erin, and the other refugee from America, Royoka. Though primarily focusing on those two, it also includes a number of points of views from other characters. When Erin discovers the properties of faerie-flowers, a number of these points of view take place in flash-back, signified by italicized writing. One point of view includes that of an adventurer, which did little for me, as he is clearly destined to be red-shirt (I think; this is not a spoiler but a reflection of a class). Another is of a crazy, acquisitive king, another of a necromancer. Honestly, skippable. I figure anyone with that high of word count isn't expecting me to read all of them. There's also an installment where Royoka reads a history of the last world-war. Nice background, but I tend to be more interested in the single-character arcs here.
Plot-wise, it feels like larger world-events are starting to coalesce, so some of the experiences of the main characters occur as they get inadvertently involved. Royoka makes great strides (ha-ha) in understanding more of the world-details, which I found interesting.
Pirateaba is good with emotion and there is a very touching development with the Gnolls. However, she's also inconsistent with emotion in her single-character heads. I can't quite work out if its intentional or not. I think so, as I think the women are in their early 20s.
Overall, a perfect kind of read for a vacation when I had oodles of reading time.
Caveat: I also have the ability to skim, and am untroubled by using it if I'm not particularly interested in a given character once it seems they won't be germane (ie. I read them when they first show up, but my investment decreases if they don't impact main characters' lives). That happens here. I did skim. Three stars is because I actually really liked much of this book. If someone got Pirateaba with a solid editor, I think there's the bones of a much better and more interesting Wheel of Time type series happening here (you know, minus the sexism).
Warning: it's written as a high-output web serial, which means Pirateaba puts up a chapter twice a week, at some insane word count of like 10k a week. I use laptops, not tablets, which is absolutely not the way to read a gazillion-word book. Thanks to a kind friend, I read this in book form on my kindle, which is the only way I can really do it. I would be SO HAPPY to pay actual dollars for this to be formatted and published, so get on it, please.
This 'book' has a number of things happen to The Wandering Inn's Innkeeper, Erin, and the other refugee from America, Royoka. Though primarily focusing on those two, it also includes a number of points of views from other characters. When Erin discovers the properties of faerie-flowers, a number of these points of view take place in flash-back, signified by italicized writing. One point of view includes that of an adventurer, which did little for me, as he is clearly destined to be red-shirt (I think; this is not a spoiler but a reflection of a class). Another is of a crazy, acquisitive king, another of a necromancer. Honestly, skippable. I figure anyone with that high of word count isn't expecting me to read all of them. There's also an installment where Royoka reads a history of the last world-war. Nice background, but I tend to be more interested in the single-character arcs here.
Plot-wise, it feels like larger world-events are starting to coalesce, so some of the experiences of the main characters occur as they get inadvertently involved. Royoka makes great strides (ha-ha) in understanding more of the world-details, which I found interesting.
Pirateaba is good with emotion and there is a very touching development with the Gnolls. However, she's also inconsistent with emotion in her single-character heads. I can't quite work out if its intentional or not. I think so, as I think the women are in their early 20s.
Overall, a perfect kind of read for a vacation when I had oodles of reading time.
Caveat: I also have the ability to skim, and am untroubled by using it if I'm not particularly interested in a given character once it seems they won't be germane (ie. I read them when they first show up, but my investment decreases if they don't impact main characters' lives). That happens here. I did skim. Three stars is because I actually really liked much of this book. If someone got Pirateaba with a solid editor, I think there's the bones of a much better and more interesting Wheel of Time type series happening here (you know, minus the sexism).