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A review by kynan
The Queen of Crows by Myke Cole
2.0
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I always feel bad when I rate something as two-stars because it feels like less than the "It was OK" that Goodreads states those two stars stand for. "It was OK" is not the kiss of death! It's more of a modern Curate's Egg, "partly bad, and partly good". And that's precisely how I feel about The Sacred Throne series so far. I've read book two, and I'm going to read book three, and that's not something I'd do if I wasn't enjoying the story so, you know, it's definitely not a "didn't like it" (and, if you think about it, just because you don't like a book, that's not necessarily a great reason not to read it, this is just a super-subjective guide to what people like and if your likes tend to line up with some other person's, then you can maybe use their star ratings to locate a book that you'll acively enjoy reading...this is a terrible tangent, stopping...NOW).
So, we step back into Heloise's stinky boots exactly where we left off in book one and I think that you could reasonably say that book two is very much the same beast. If you liked the casual brutality and the "who's dead now?" element, that's still very much in play. If you're interested in the young female lead kicking ass and taking names, you'll be glad to see Heloise really starting to learn how to use her new-found War Machine to good advantage, if you are rooting for a battle between corrupt religious bodies floating in unearned luxury atop the unwashed and oppressed masses, step right up! There's a lot to like about this story, it's not what you'd call original - in fact, one of the things I'm having trouble with is that I keep having triggered Wheel of Time (WoT) flashbacks. When we meet the Travelling People in this story and learn of their adherence to a religion of sorts that alludes to the Wheel of life taking people around, who travel from place to place to avoid the Order (although very much not following the Way of the Leaf), the powers revealed back in Armored Saint wielded by the wizards, and another point of similarity that currently escapes me, well that comparison just starts to be drawn. And that's not really fair, because obviously both stories are drawing in reality, and stories that have grown around those realities. But the problem I have with the Sacred Throne is that it feels somewhat the opposite of WoT. Where WoT meanders, drags it's feet and generally doesn't know when to leave a sub-plot along, Sacred Throne feels like it's all skeleton and no meat. All of the potential sub-plots are poking out all over the place and obnoxiously jab you in the face, constantly. This leads to a tight, fast-paced story (I'm averaging two days per book so far) but one that also feels like it could have had a bit more character development and time for the character interactions to occur more naturally.
Heloise feels like she's growing in fast-forward and I'm having a little trouble buying it. Likewise, in reverse, for Samson, Sigir and Barnard, and all the other villagers come to that. Not to mention the cardboard cut-out bad guy that is Tone. Everyone's just super-two dimensional.
OK, enough ragging on the poor book because, as I've pointed out, I am actually enjoying it. I truly thought I knew exactly what would happen back in Armored Saint and Clodio's arc really surprised me, I did not see his catalysing actions coming at all. And there's more twisty bits of that nature in Queen of Crows too, and lots more action and adventure. The strong, nascent-homosexual female lead (although something that's becoming a lot more common) is a welcome normalising element, but it keeps popping up at inelegant moments and I can't tell if I have a weird bias that makes me feel like it's inelegant, or if this is another symptom of the EverythingsHappeningAllAtOnceOhMyWhoJustDiedNevermindILoveHerFIGHTIneedABath skeleton writing style. Either way, it's nice too see a two-dimensionalish female lead doing unbelievable things and saving the day instead of a male one for a change.
Err, in short: read this if you liked book one, and expect to need to read book three to find closure.
do want to know what's going to happen next and