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zoey222 's review for:
Blood Song
by Anthony Ryan
I finished the book. I go into details about some major dissappointments from the book, but the primary reason why I disliked it is the lack of fulfilled promises.
The beginning, a School arc, is strong and engaging. I was willing to forgive the main character's perfect and impeccable ability to do everything because I appreciated how the circumstances led him to each result. It never felt bare-assed, you know? Besides, this is epic fantasy, and how can you have an epic fantasy if the main character dies right away? Even in the least of Gary Stu cases, I know 90% of the time which characters will live and which are expendable. Even Game of Thrones reveals that.
But heavens, does the plot begin to kick mud in the back half. We hustle from warfront to warfront, names all blending together because of the insane number of "e"'s in each one, magical intrigue being greedily ear-marked for a later release. The consequences of each laborious war campaign are barely a paragraph's worth of prose. The Cumbraelin campaign was so close to being a game-changer but it was merely a 30 page stint into epic design before Vaelin returns to conformity, and literally abandons one of the most interesting character and plot moments in the damn book.
The relationship of father and son is not explored in the least, while at the same time being the fulcrum upon which the main character's actions and desires balance. We have to somehow relate with the main character's hatred for his father for 600 pages when the father is in the book for perhaps the first 20 pages. Even John Wick did it better. Revenge is earned, not expected!
I am most angered, however, by the total anti-climax of VAELIN AL SORNA, THE HOPE KILLER.