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A review by pagesofash
Godblind by Anna Stephens
4.0
Well that was a really fucken good book. I mean a reallllllly fucken good book.
Okay, where do I start?
First a structure note; this book is made up of multiple short POV chapters. Now personally I LOVE short chapters, I'm a slow reader and short chapters make me feel like I'm eating up the distance in a book's pages but obviously short chapters are not for everyone so consider yourself warned. On that note, I'm a bit hesitant when it comes to multiple POV's, especially when there are as many as this book has. Let's see, there's Dom, Rillirin, Crys, Mace, Durdil, Tara, the Blessed One, Corvus and Gilda, did I miss anyone? Probably! Even if I didn't miss anyone that's a whopping nine, count em' NINE, POV's to follow. Oh wait I did miss at least one, Galtas so lets crank that number up to ten. Now I don't know about you but I have a love-hate relationship with books that go back and forth between several different POV characters. I often feel like I've just gotten into one character's tale and I've just started to care about them when I'm pulled out of it and forced to observe another character, I almost resent it. BUT, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what multiple POV chapters can contribute to story telling so much of the time I just suck it up and deal with it. Well guess what!? I didn't have that issue with this book. I know right? Gasp, shock and horror, how is that even possible!? Well I'll tell you how, in addition to the chapters being short the POV's are often also grouped. Genius right? I certainly thought so. What this means is that sometimes when you move from say Dom to Rillirin or Crys to Tara you're carrying on with the exact same scene and characters just through another's eyes. Sometimes you're jumping across country but as the story goes on and our characters form ranks (both so to speak and literally) this happens with decreasing frequency.
Beware cliffhangers you will not get a nicely wrapped up ending, I mean, talk about being left in the lurch! Luckily I only have a couple of months to wait for Darksoul.
Right, enough babbling, on with the show!
Characters, flawed, 3 dimensional not-always-your-classic-good-guy-bad-guy-divide here. It's brilliant! Will your favourite character do the 'right' thing, the 'selfish' thing or the 'bad' thing? Mwhahaha, that's just it you don't know, you'll have to read on to find out! I read somewhere recently that one of the definitions of grimdark fantasy is just fantasy with more realistic characters. I feel like that's exactly what we got here and I loved it. Fair warning, be careful whom you get attached too!
Setting, good not great. It's worth noting though that I read this on my kindle which is an older touch screen, great e-reader but REALLY shitty for maps! So I might feel differently about the setting when I get a physical copy of the book and can track the story's progress across the map. I did like the sound of Rilporin but we don't get to see that much of it in this book. Overall, with the vast plains, the high mountain passes and the vast rivers I got the feel of a high fantasy setting, especially when you throw in the walled Watcher town and the border forts. For me that's a good thing and it works in this story, which I'll be honest, I wasn't sure it would.
The plot, excellent! Oooooh, how to talk about this without spoilers? Um umm UMMM! You know what? The less you know the better, the Red Gods are coming, just read it!
Oh one last thing, dark fantasy caveat. Foul language is the least of your worries. The Mircese keep slaves, including bed slaves, whom they see as less than human; they worship blood gods who demand human sacrifice and torture, if you're going to read this book (and I think you should) come prepared for that.
Okay, where do I start?
First a structure note; this book is made up of multiple short POV chapters. Now personally I LOVE short chapters, I'm a slow reader and short chapters make me feel like I'm eating up the distance in a book's pages but obviously short chapters are not for everyone so consider yourself warned. On that note, I'm a bit hesitant when it comes to multiple POV's, especially when there are as many as this book has. Let's see, there's Dom, Rillirin, Crys, Mace, Durdil, Tara, the Blessed One, Corvus and Gilda, did I miss anyone? Probably! Even if I didn't miss anyone that's a whopping nine, count em' NINE, POV's to follow. Oh wait I did miss at least one, Galtas so lets crank that number up to ten. Now I don't know about you but I have a love-hate relationship with books that go back and forth between several different POV characters. I often feel like I've just gotten into one character's tale and I've just started to care about them when I'm pulled out of it and forced to observe another character, I almost resent it. BUT, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what multiple POV chapters can contribute to story telling so much of the time I just suck it up and deal with it. Well guess what!? I didn't have that issue with this book. I know right? Gasp, shock and horror, how is that even possible!? Well I'll tell you how, in addition to the chapters being short the POV's are often also grouped. Genius right? I certainly thought so. What this means is that sometimes when you move from say Dom to Rillirin or Crys to Tara you're carrying on with the exact same scene and characters just through another's eyes. Sometimes you're jumping across country but as the story goes on and our characters form ranks (both so to speak and literally) this happens with decreasing frequency.
Beware cliffhangers you will not get a nicely wrapped up ending, I mean, talk about being left in the lurch! Luckily I only have a couple of months to wait for Darksoul.
Right, enough babbling, on with the show!
Characters, flawed, 3 dimensional not-always-your-classic-good-guy-bad-guy-divide here. It's brilliant! Will your favourite character do the 'right' thing, the 'selfish' thing or the 'bad' thing? Mwhahaha, that's just it you don't know, you'll have to read on to find out! I read somewhere recently that one of the definitions of grimdark fantasy is just fantasy with more realistic characters. I feel like that's exactly what we got here and I loved it. Fair warning, be careful whom you get attached too!
Setting, good not great. It's worth noting though that I read this on my kindle which is an older touch screen, great e-reader but REALLY shitty for maps! So I might feel differently about the setting when I get a physical copy of the book and can track the story's progress across the map. I did like the sound of Rilporin but we don't get to see that much of it in this book. Overall, with the vast plains, the high mountain passes and the vast rivers I got the feel of a high fantasy setting, especially when you throw in the walled Watcher town and the border forts. For me that's a good thing and it works in this story, which I'll be honest, I wasn't sure it would.
The plot, excellent! Oooooh, how to talk about this without spoilers? Um umm UMMM! You know what? The less you know the better, the Red Gods are coming, just read it!
Oh one last thing, dark fantasy caveat. Foul language is the least of your worries. The Mircese keep slaves, including bed slaves, whom they see as less than human; they worship blood gods who demand human sacrifice and torture, if you're going to read this book (and I think you should) come prepared for that.