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A review by rg9400
Demon in White by Christopher Ruocchio
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I've been struggling with Sun Eater, but I wanted to give Demon in White a chance because I had heard from multiple people that it was their favorite in the series. Though I think there are some elements that do not work for me, I am baffled by the praise this book gets since I found it the weakest in the series where all the shortcomings of the series are on glaring display.
First off, there is no way around it. These books are slow. They move at a glacial pace, with only like 5 to 6 events happening per book. This book is the worst offender in my opinion, with it feeling like maybe the slowest book I've read since I started really reading sci-fi/fantasy 5 years ago. The specific problem in this book is that the plot mostly revolves more around battles and politicking, both tropes that are fairly common in other books. The prior two books felt like they were covering more unique worldbuilding concepts, so despite the plot moving slowly, it didn't feel as noticeable since there weren't clear comparison points. The same cannot be said for this book, with a lot of the plot actually feeling similar to Red Rising #2, Golden Son. Obviously, there are some key differences, but the general vibe felt similar. Golden Son is less than half the page count of Demon in White and manages to accomplish a lot more in terms of plot, with the action sequences feeling far more engaging. Frankly speaking, I don't think Ruocchio is particularly great at writing action, which is a shame because there are hundreds of pages dedicated to it in this book.
Given the lack of plot progression, you'd assume that this book is instead focused on developing characters. However, I don't think that's true either. Outside of Hadrian and Valka, none of the other characters are given any depth. The earlier issue in the prior books was that side characters were just discarded event to event, but now we actually have a few characters who have managed to stick around for a while, but they have no personality. They are like the fodder troops in other books, yet the book seems to not realize the lack of depth by constantly mentioning them and some of their farewells with more weight than they deserve. We do get a few new characters, namely related to the politics of the world, who do seem to add a more unique dimension to the story. Unfortunately, they remain mostly bare sketches of characters, though I do think they could develop into more interesting characters in the future. However, considering this book is 900 pages long, their development is still not particularly strong. The book (and series so far) really only focuses on our main duo. Valka was by far the most interesting character of the earlier books, but she's mostly relegated to a passive character in this book with her agency largely tied to that of Hadrian. I still find her interesting, but this feels like a regression to me. Hadrian is definitely given the most page count. But as I neared the end of this book, I started asking myself who Hadrian actually was as a character. I certainly understand his role in the plot. But looking at the actual character, I cannot name what really motivates and drives him, what his internal conflict actually is, or what he grows into as the future Hadrian that narrates this story. There are certainly tropes that apply to him, but despite being in his head, he feels devoid of personality and interiority. There is a clear comparison to other characters from sci-fi media, and Hadrian feels like the least compelling by a large margin.
The most interesting aspect of this series for me was the worldbuilding. I think the lore was fascinating, both in terms of the past as well as the present conflict. This book was a mixed bag in that regard. There were some interesting things we learned about the past that did seem like cool concepts. However, the way the story develops in regards to the current conflict and some of the ancillary parties went in directions I was not super happy with. The threat sort of starts to lose nuance which I actually thought was one of the more compelling questions from the first book -- what if the aliens are not necessarily the villains they are portrayed to be? Additionally, some of the other answers we get in this book, while unique, were mechanics that I just found wobbly and uninteresting.
As I touched above, the themes start to lose some of their depth in this book alongside some of the regression in character work and lore. Most notably, I think book 2 did a good job of building out a juxtaposition of Hadrian to some of the other entities he finds, often leading to an internal conflict where he tries to differentiate himself. This book doesn't touch on that theme at all. Maybe future books will, but it felt like it failed to build on what had come before. I do think it introduces a new theme at the end that could be interesting, but again, it is reminiscent of other books.
Given how little is accomplished in terms of plot, character work, lore, and themes, you might be wondering what could be filling 900 pages of content. I myself constantly asked this question as I slogged through the circular story and tried to find what narrative tension or suspense should be motivating me to keep turning the page. The answer is repetition. We are constantly bombarded with reminders of what we have read before. We keep being told about the events that have taken place across the last 2 books and this book, and that list keeps increasing. We kept being told the same aphorisms, fluffy quotes that manage to actually say nothing at all. In Game of Thrones, they repeat long epithets for certain characters whenever introducing them. It's like that throughout in this book, constantly. Just smashing the reader on the head with what has happened even while they are reading it.
As a side note, even though it isn't related to the book itself, the narrator shifted the pronunciation of certain character names, specificallySiren and Selene , chapter to chapter. Both were baffling since they have clear Western pronunciations, and the narrator did do them correctly only to swap to drastically different ones and then back again, leading to confusion.
I've gone on a large rant here, and I do want to say that I think Ruocchio has some solid prose. However, beyond that, I am legitimately struggling to understand what people find good in this series and in this book in particular. I haven't been this opposed to the SFF popular opinion in a long time. Beyond feeling like this series doesn't really earn its page count, I can also clearly see its inspirations which inform so many of the high-level decisions. In that regard, this book really felt like it failed to differentiate itself, and frankly speaking, this book's inspirations are just a lot better than it at a fraction of the page count. I would highly recommend reading Red Rising or Dune instead of this series, and I will no longer be continuing with it.
First off, there is no way around it. These books are slow. They move at a glacial pace, with only like 5 to 6 events happening per book. This book is the worst offender in my opinion, with it feeling like maybe the slowest book I've read since I started really reading sci-fi/fantasy 5 years ago. The specific problem in this book is that the plot mostly revolves more around battles and politicking, both tropes that are fairly common in other books. The prior two books felt like they were covering more unique worldbuilding concepts, so despite the plot moving slowly, it didn't feel as noticeable since there weren't clear comparison points. The same cannot be said for this book, with a lot of the plot actually feeling similar to Red Rising #2, Golden Son. Obviously, there are some key differences, but the general vibe felt similar. Golden Son is less than half the page count of Demon in White and manages to accomplish a lot more in terms of plot, with the action sequences feeling far more engaging. Frankly speaking, I don't think Ruocchio is particularly great at writing action, which is a shame because there are hundreds of pages dedicated to it in this book.
Given the lack of plot progression, you'd assume that this book is instead focused on developing characters. However, I don't think that's true either. Outside of Hadrian and Valka, none of the other characters are given any depth. The earlier issue in the prior books was that side characters were just discarded event to event, but now we actually have a few characters who have managed to stick around for a while, but they have no personality. They are like the fodder troops in other books, yet the book seems to not realize the lack of depth by constantly mentioning them and some of their farewells with more weight than they deserve. We do get a few new characters, namely related to the politics of the world, who do seem to add a more unique dimension to the story. Unfortunately, they remain mostly bare sketches of characters, though I do think they could develop into more interesting characters in the future. However, considering this book is 900 pages long, their development is still not particularly strong. The book (and series so far) really only focuses on our main duo. Valka was by far the most interesting character of the earlier books, but she's mostly relegated to a passive character in this book with her agency largely tied to that of Hadrian. I still find her interesting, but this feels like a regression to me. Hadrian is definitely given the most page count. But as I neared the end of this book, I started asking myself who Hadrian actually was as a character. I certainly understand his role in the plot. But looking at the actual character, I cannot name what really motivates and drives him, what his internal conflict actually is, or what he grows into as the future Hadrian that narrates this story. There are certainly tropes that apply to him, but despite being in his head, he feels devoid of personality and interiority. There is a clear comparison to other characters from sci-fi media, and Hadrian feels like the least compelling by a large margin.
The most interesting aspect of this series for me was the worldbuilding. I think the lore was fascinating, both in terms of the past as well as the present conflict. This book was a mixed bag in that regard. There were some interesting things we learned about the past that did seem like cool concepts. However, the way the story develops in regards to the current conflict and some of the ancillary parties went in directions I was not super happy with. The threat sort of starts to lose nuance which I actually thought was one of the more compelling questions from the first book -- what if the aliens are not necessarily the villains they are portrayed to be? Additionally, some of the other answers we get in this book, while unique, were mechanics that I just found wobbly and uninteresting.
As I touched above, the themes start to lose some of their depth in this book alongside some of the regression in character work and lore. Most notably, I think book 2 did a good job of building out a juxtaposition of Hadrian to some of the other entities he finds, often leading to an internal conflict where he tries to differentiate himself. This book doesn't touch on that theme at all. Maybe future books will, but it felt like it failed to build on what had come before. I do think it introduces a new theme at the end that could be interesting, but again, it is reminiscent of other books.
Given how little is accomplished in terms of plot, character work, lore, and themes, you might be wondering what could be filling 900 pages of content. I myself constantly asked this question as I slogged through the circular story and tried to find what narrative tension or suspense should be motivating me to keep turning the page. The answer is repetition. We are constantly bombarded with reminders of what we have read before. We keep being told about the events that have taken place across the last 2 books and this book, and that list keeps increasing. We kept being told the same aphorisms, fluffy quotes that manage to actually say nothing at all. In Game of Thrones, they repeat long epithets for certain characters whenever introducing them. It's like that throughout in this book, constantly. Just smashing the reader on the head with what has happened even while they are reading it.
As a side note, even though it isn't related to the book itself, the narrator shifted the pronunciation of certain character names, specifically
I've gone on a large rant here, and I do want to say that I think Ruocchio has some solid prose. However, beyond that, I am legitimately struggling to understand what people find good in this series and in this book in particular. I haven't been this opposed to the SFF popular opinion in a long time. Beyond feeling like this series doesn't really earn its page count, I can also clearly see its inspirations which inform so many of the high-level decisions. In that regard, this book really felt like it failed to differentiate itself, and frankly speaking, this book's inspirations are just a lot better than it at a fraction of the page count. I would highly recommend reading Red Rising or Dune instead of this series, and I will no longer be continuing with it.