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A review by tristenkozinski
A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne
3.0
Listened to the audio book; the narrators were fine by some of the accents and inflections were initially grating until I accustomed to them.
Contrary to what my rating might say, I did not like a Plague of Giants. Despite my personal enjoyment though, the book has competent characters, world building, progression and prose (though the dictionary was over-used in some places.) It is a competent narrative sprinkled with some light comedy, several nice action sequences, and uses of magic. It is also a story the insists on punishing the reader for investing in its characters, killing no less then three POV characters for no other discernible purpose than gritty realism. It is a punishing book, which is fine at the start where the inciting calamity occurs, but as the narrative progresses into the second half and the author kept adding misery onto the narrative, I grew first tired of the misery, then frustrated and aggravated as characters I was supposed to like and root for (and nominally did) were given romance interests and teased with happy endings only to be summarily killed by the author. It wasn't a fun, rewarding, or enlightening reading experience.
There are some readers who will enjoy this for the same reasons I didn't. For these: the plot is solid, but a bit slow to start as you accustom yourself to the way the narrative is composed the various primary POV's are introduced, and set up where set up is required. There's only a few moments during the story where the plot got me excited to keep reading/listening (the discovery of the sixth kenning and the translation of the book along with the answers that promised) but the rest of the narratives are solid. I listened to the book while working, but for plain reading some people may find the lack of a concerted driving narrative a bit of a slog.
Contrary to what my rating might say, I did not like a Plague of Giants. Despite my personal enjoyment though, the book has competent characters, world building, progression and prose (though the dictionary was over-used in some places.) It is a competent narrative sprinkled with some light comedy, several nice action sequences, and uses of magic. It is also a story the insists on punishing the reader for investing in its characters, killing no less then three POV characters for no other discernible purpose than gritty realism. It is a punishing book, which is fine at the start where the inciting calamity occurs, but as the narrative progresses into the second half and the author kept adding misery onto the narrative, I grew first tired of the misery, then frustrated and aggravated as characters I was supposed to like and root for (and nominally did) were given romance interests and teased with happy endings only to be summarily killed by the author. It wasn't a fun, rewarding, or enlightening reading experience.
There are some readers who will enjoy this for the same reasons I didn't. For these: the plot is solid, but a bit slow to start as you accustom yourself to the way the narrative is composed the various primary POV's are introduced, and set up where set up is required. There's only a few moments during the story where the plot got me excited to keep reading/listening (the discovery of the sixth kenning and the translation of the book along with the answers that promised) but the rest of the narratives are solid. I listened to the book while working, but for plain reading some people may find the lack of a concerted driving narrative a bit of a slog.