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A review by rg9400
Of Darkness and Light by Ryan Cahill
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Of Darkness and Light takes the setup from Of Blood and Fire and cranks up the scale dramatically. The cast of perspectives increases significantly, and the story now follows multiple different cities, regions, conflicts, and organizations. Fans of the storytelling in Of Blood and Fire will certainly be pleased because it's a lot more of the same thing. For me though, I was left still feeling fairly mixed on this series. In some regards, I am coming to a realization that this classic style fantasy is not my thing, and I often was reminded of my attempts to read Wheel of Time which was similarly also not for me. I do feel like there are issues I have with the execution regardless, though I did also note some glimmers of promise. Also upfront, I found the themes and prose in this series to be very unremarkable, so I won't comment on those.
To start, the character roster is certainly a lot bigger. Initially, I was excited to move past our cast of 3 farmboys. However, I quickly realized an inescapable truth...despite jumping into the perspective of what felt like 30+ characters, we still get only ONE female perspective. A single one. And that perspective spends a lot of time moping around about a male character. There are a few female side-characters shown externally from other perspectives, but the ones that get the most screentime are mainly identified by being the object of affection of the male perspective at that time. There are some female badass characters we are given a glimpse of, and I certainly hope Cahill spends more time on them in future installments, because this vestige of classic fantasy should not carry forward. I understand that readers have different levels of sensitivity towards this type of imbalance, but personally speaking, it was far more noticeable to me in this book than pretty much anything else I've read in the past year. Beyond that, I did feel like a lot of the male characters felt interchangeable. Despite the high page count, not a lot of time is spent building character depth, so even though I get that it is hard to round out such a large cast, I do think the focus is not as centered on the characters. That said, I did find certain characters (who again have limited screentime) to have interesting backstories that made them much more compelling. And the new perspective from a character who is the main protagonist in the follow-up novella had much more inner conflict and complexity than most in this book. The main protagonist remains an archetype, though I did enjoy his relationship with his dragon. Overall, by the end of the book, I was starting to finally root for some characters, but especially considering the amount of pages, the character work in this series so far leaves a lot to be desired.
The plot is certainly where this book shines the most. I still feel like the pace moves very slowly, and the bloated page count tends to lead to more indulgent "character journeying from point A to point B" sections compared to something that was edited much tighter. But after finishing, I do think the book covered quite a bit of ground with various big setpieces. I am not an action driven reader, but the large battle sequences in this book will please fans looking for that sort of thing from their fantasy, especially because this series has no issue giving us tons of beloved classic fantasy elements thrown together from wizards to dragons to creatures to shapeshifters to elves and so on. I can see people who are frustrated with fantasy that tends to only give flashes of these elements to really enjoy this series which has no issue increasing the dose of these elements. The overarching story still feels a bit vague to me. I am not sure what I am looking towards because it mostly feels like characters going from one place to another due to circumstance, and the main conflict seems like the standard good vs evil conflict you'd find in classic fantasy. The ending did give a taste of the story going in a more interesting and unxpected direction though.
I am not a big worldbuilding-focused reader, so in terms of that, I don't have a ton to say. I do feel like a lot of the elements in this book are inspired by other well-known fantasy books, and it wears those inspirations on its sleeve. I don't mind that, but I am left wondering which element of this book feels like something it is *adding* into that list, what is that one thing that really represents The Bound and the Broken as a series versus as an amalgamation of all these other stories. I still don't know the answer to that. In terms of lore, it still feels a bit underdeveloped. I don't much care for lore, so this is honestly a plus for me. But when it came to understanding some of the organizations and political factions in some of the side-character stories, I struggled a bit to understand their role in the larger world.
Overall, I am rating it higher than Of Blood and Fire because it definitely feels like a large improvement, but my core issues still remain. As a reader who prefers efficient and intentional writing, this series is maybe simply not for me. I am planning on reading the next novella, but I am not sure if I will do the 1500 chonker after it. Ryan Cahill seems like a great guy and an excellent member of the indie community. I am happy for his success, but I wanted to try and explore my thoughts after this book in a detailed review just to better understand where I stand on it myself.
To start, the character roster is certainly a lot bigger. Initially, I was excited to move past our cast of 3 farmboys. However, I quickly realized an inescapable truth...despite jumping into the perspective of what felt like 30+ characters, we still get only ONE female perspective. A single one. And that perspective spends a lot of time moping around about a male character. There are a few female side-characters shown externally from other perspectives, but the ones that get the most screentime are mainly identified by being the object of affection of the male perspective at that time. There are some female badass characters we are given a glimpse of, and I certainly hope Cahill spends more time on them in future installments, because this vestige of classic fantasy should not carry forward. I understand that readers have different levels of sensitivity towards this type of imbalance, but personally speaking, it was far more noticeable to me in this book than pretty much anything else I've read in the past year. Beyond that, I did feel like a lot of the male characters felt interchangeable. Despite the high page count, not a lot of time is spent building character depth, so even though I get that it is hard to round out such a large cast, I do think the focus is not as centered on the characters. That said, I did find certain characters (who again have limited screentime) to have interesting backstories that made them much more compelling. And the new perspective from a character who is the main protagonist in the follow-up novella had much more inner conflict and complexity than most in this book. The main protagonist remains an archetype, though I did enjoy his relationship with his dragon. Overall, by the end of the book, I was starting to finally root for some characters, but especially considering the amount of pages, the character work in this series so far leaves a lot to be desired.
The plot is certainly where this book shines the most. I still feel like the pace moves very slowly, and the bloated page count tends to lead to more indulgent "character journeying from point A to point B" sections compared to something that was edited much tighter. But after finishing, I do think the book covered quite a bit of ground with various big setpieces. I am not an action driven reader, but the large battle sequences in this book will please fans looking for that sort of thing from their fantasy, especially because this series has no issue giving us tons of beloved classic fantasy elements thrown together from wizards to dragons to creatures to shapeshifters to elves and so on. I can see people who are frustrated with fantasy that tends to only give flashes of these elements to really enjoy this series which has no issue increasing the dose of these elements. The overarching story still feels a bit vague to me. I am not sure what I am looking towards because it mostly feels like characters going from one place to another due to circumstance, and the main conflict seems like the standard good vs evil conflict you'd find in classic fantasy. The ending did give a taste of the story going in a more interesting and unxpected direction though.
I am not a big worldbuilding-focused reader, so in terms of that, I don't have a ton to say. I do feel like a lot of the elements in this book are inspired by other well-known fantasy books, and it wears those inspirations on its sleeve. I don't mind that, but I am left wondering which element of this book feels like something it is *adding* into that list, what is that one thing that really represents The Bound and the Broken as a series versus as an amalgamation of all these other stories. I still don't know the answer to that. In terms of lore, it still feels a bit underdeveloped. I don't much care for lore, so this is honestly a plus for me. But when it came to understanding some of the organizations and political factions in some of the side-character stories, I struggled a bit to understand their role in the larger world.
Overall, I am rating it higher than Of Blood and Fire because it definitely feels like a large improvement, but my core issues still remain. As a reader who prefers efficient and intentional writing, this series is maybe simply not for me. I am planning on reading the next novella, but I am not sure if I will do the 1500 chonker after it. Ryan Cahill seems like a great guy and an excellent member of the indie community. I am happy for his success, but I wanted to try and explore my thoughts after this book in a detailed review just to better understand where I stand on it myself.