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A review by zober
The Blackwing War by K.B. Spangler
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
This was wonderful. The main character, Tembi, is fantastic, but there's a great cast of side characters (Bayle, Kalais, Matindi, the Deep, Domino, and more) who are also very distinct and well-written. I liked the world a lot. It's always fun to see an author's take on what would change and what would stay the same in a far-future setting. In this case, more stayed the same than I would have expected, especially with language. But I guess to do otherwise would be difficult for the reader to follow along.
There were some small things that I thought were odd - e.g. mentioning "an arid planet that was somehow also unbearably humid" with no further explanation of how that's possible, or a typo where alienness was spelled alieness. They took me out of the world, which is never great. But overall this was incredibly captivating. I read it in three chunks over two days, and each time I left the book I was eagerly looking forward to jumping back in.
I guessed a couple of the big reveals pretty early - Winter's identity + her final reveal that hints at the plot of future books. But the world and characters were so fun that I didn't really mind. I was really disappointed to learn that the next book isn't out yet, and there's not even a release date.
Honestly I could list a bunch more gripes, but overall I just loved this book despite all of that!
Favorite quotes:
"At first, they thrilled at their access to forces beyond human comprehension; later, they got fed up at the lack of answers. Then they usually took up word puzzles."
"All of the hardest tasks came with checklists."
"And you have to stay calm, or the Deep will know something is wrong, and it'll whisk the Admiral away forever and there will be an intergalactic incident and then on top of it all it'll fill this place with cats."
There were some small things that I thought were odd - e.g. mentioning "an arid planet that was somehow also unbearably humid" with no further explanation of how that's possible, or a typo where alienness was spelled alieness. They took me out of the world, which is never great. But overall this was incredibly captivating. I read it in three chunks over two days, and each time I left the book I was eagerly looking forward to jumping back in.
I guessed a couple of the big reveals pretty early - Winter's identity + her final reveal that hints at the plot of future books. But the world and characters were so fun that I didn't really mind. I was really disappointed to learn that the next book isn't out yet, and there's not even a release date.
Honestly I could list a bunch more gripes, but overall I just loved this book despite all of that!
Favorite quotes:
"At first, they thrilled at their access to forces beyond human comprehension; later, they got fed up at the lack of answers. Then they usually took up word puzzles."
"All of the hardest tasks came with checklists."