titus_hjelm 's review for:

A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall

3.0

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Brilliant! Marshall gives me hope about the state of the genre, where too often characters are two-dimensional, plots formulaic, and way too much time is spent on utterly boring battle scenes. 4/5 of this book is mercifully free of the latter, and I would have given it 4 stars had the last fifth been mostly about exactly that. The problem is that with a focus on fighting, the caracters also lose their three-dimensionality, and the narrative just never takes off. Luckily the bulk of the book is interesting, both in terms of characters and the world. There's a nice balance of aspects 'required' of good fantasy. Looking forward to the follow-up.