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randomprogrammer 's review for:
The Crimson Campaign
by Brian McClellan
Had a ton of fun, couldn't put it down. There was a thing here and a thing there that I didn't love. Pol was sometimes conveniently weak for the sake of being saved by Taniel, and the army at large was grossly ignorant of her powers to an unbelievable extent. The whole generals-hate-tamil sub-plot seemed just slightly unrealistic (I think he would have garnered more respect), but I went with it. And there were some key fights prolonged for the sake of making the fight cooler (Tamis vs the handless mage, when he should have just shot him from the shadows). But in general, the good far outweighed the bad. It was exciting, kept multiple interesting plots going, and satisfied all those fun magical-gun-fight itches. Very much looking forward to book 3.
Does a pretty decent job of balancing all the different genres. Criminal underworld, military campaign, magical mysteries, political investigating, hot-shot-fighting mage, etc.
I'm always kind of prepared for male-written fantasy to have a certain kind of male gaze, but I think this book is pretty acceptable in that regard. The female character writing isn't particularly strong, but this isn't one of those breasted boobily down the hallway books. You can tell the author put some attempts at strong females, even if he doesn't always nail it. The harems contain beautiful women AND men, the officers in the army are casually female, many of the villains are female, one of the best powder mages is a woman, but we do still end up with some damsel tropes.
Does a pretty decent job of balancing all the different genres. Criminal underworld, military campaign, magical mysteries, political investigating, hot-shot-fighting mage, etc.
I'm always kind of prepared for male-written fantasy to have a certain kind of male gaze, but I think this book is pretty acceptable in that regard. The female character writing isn't particularly strong, but this isn't one of those breasted boobily down the hallway books. You can tell the author put some attempts at strong females, even if he doesn't always nail it. The harems contain beautiful women AND men, the officers in the army are casually female, many of the villains are female, one of the best powder mages is a woman, but we do still end up with some damsel tropes.