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A review by dark_reader
Rise of the Mages by Scott Drakeford
1.0
I thought I should DNF after Chapter 2 or so, but I read on. Dear Reader, I should have stopped. I almost did, but it didn't seem fair; I read this because the author is one of the two hosts of the Publishing Rodeo podcast which I enjoyed for its behind-the-scenes insight into publishing, and early on I decided to read the hosts' books. I decided to continue this book because I figured there had to be good qualities I simply hadn't gotten to yet, that the things that were irking me early weren't necessarily going to continue at the same frequency, that if I'm going to post negatives about my experience I should read the whole thing, and I could stand to do so. (Yes, I could have stopped and not posted anything but my brain's not good like that.) I trusted the review that said, "the final third of the book more than made up for the beginning," too.
Fortunately, the things that bothered me early on did indeed fade. They were replaced instead with new things that I did not enjoy.
There were good things too. The prologue was great. Part of why I kept reading was to see that story element come back into play. Dear Reader, it did not come back into play like I hoped. The other good part was Emrael's critical transformative chapter near the end. Those were the only parts of the story that grabbed me.
After the prologue came Chapter 0, yes there was both a prologue and a Chapter 0, and there the trouble started. Exposition! Everywhere exposition. Expositional dialogue especially, much of it of the, "As you know, Bob," variety. It felt very unnatural and immediately killed my opinion of the writing quality. This is not the writing that we like.
The next thing was infusori, this world's magic sauce. It's rechargeable batteries, except when it's the Force. That's not the problem, it's that infusori is exclusively written in italics, and repeated unnecessarily. There are infusori Wells and since wells is capitalized that word is already special, you can establish that Wells are where infusori Crafted devices get infusori from without having to specify infusori Wells every time infusori Wells are mentioned. Same for infusori Crafters. There are no other kind of Crafters, or even crafters, so why do they have to say infusori to specify what kind of Crafters in every instance? Why is infusori even italicized at all? Is it a foreign word? It's quite integral and integrated into the book's societies, it's part of their regular lexicon, there's no reason to italicize it.
Let me demonstrate with an omelette. I'm using the British English spelling because it works better for the example, sorry Yanks with your omelets and prologs. 'Omelette' was once a foreign word but it ain't anymore.
Fortunately, the things that bothered me early on did indeed fade. They were replaced instead with new things that I did not enjoy.
There were good things too. The prologue was great. Part of why I kept reading was to see that story element come back into play. Dear Reader, it did not come back into play like I hoped. The other good part was Emrael's critical transformative chapter near the end. Those were the only parts of the story that grabbed me.
After the prologue came Chapter 0, yes there was both a prologue and a Chapter 0, and there the trouble started. Exposition! Everywhere exposition. Expositional dialogue especially, much of it of the, "As you know, Bob," variety. It felt very unnatural and immediately killed my opinion of the writing quality. This is not the writing that we like.
The next thing was infusori, this world's magic sauce. It's rechargeable batteries, except when it's the Force. That's not the problem, it's that infusori is exclusively written in italics, and repeated unnecessarily. There are infusori Wells and since wells is capitalized that word is already special, you can establish that Wells are where infusori Crafted devices get infusori from without having to specify infusori Wells every time infusori Wells are mentioned. Same for infusori Crafters. There are no other kind of Crafters, or even crafters, so why do they have to say infusori to specify what kind of Crafters in every instance? Why is infusori even italicized at all? Is it a foreign word? It's quite integral and integrated into the book's societies, it's part of their regular lexicon, there's no reason to italicize it.
Let me demonstrate with an omelette. I'm using the British English spelling because it works better for the example, sorry Yanks with your omelets and prologs. 'Omelette' was once a foreign word but it ain't anymore.
"Hey dear, I'm warming up the omelette pan. Would you like an omelette made of eggs?"
"Yes, please, I would love an omelette made of eggs. What kind of omelette?"
"Well, I can make a Western omelette. "
"Oh, is a Western omelette the kind of omelette with peppers and ham?"
"Yes, that is a Western omelette. Do you like that kind of omelette? I could also make a cheese omelette, but decide now. The omelette pan is heated. I'm cracking the omelette eggs now."
"No, I'll stick with a Western omelette. Thank you for making me an omelette!"
An early section of the book was so dense with infusori talk like this, with infusori appearing multiple times per paragraph, it drove me nuts.
Both the density of infusori on the page and expository dialogue eventually went mostly away. But dialogue never really became natural. Characters spoke and even thought artificially and at much greater length than made sense, especially when expressing sharp emotion. I didn't enjoy character interactions at any point, and characters themselves were basic and blandly either good or evil. Downtime scenes for character and relationship development made me cringe. I never bought into or enjoyed the experience of any character or plot development; it felt like ham-handedly forcing the characters to meet the requirements of the story outline at every turn. Action scenes were, eh, okay, but unexciting and made me want to skip to the outcome. This is not the writing that we like.
My experience throughout 95% percent of the book was one of lousiness. The closest book experience I can think of is Eye of Obscurance. That also felt, after a good start, simply lousy. I don't know how else to describe it, but it failed to fulfill any of the things that thrill me or impress me in other books. It probably fits in well with some older fantasy; I haven't read the Belgariad but this made me wonder if it was similar, something about more "classic" plot-driven fantasy. There were many points in the book where I was reminded of some other specific thing in fantasy media, which is fine if the point is to take inspiration from multiple sources and put them into a particular kind of story. But with the fantasy novels I have loved, I can't remember ever thinking, "This is like this other thing."
I feel a little bad leaving such a negative review but I can't be anything but honest (and my brain won't let me not review at all). I shouldn't have to feel bad though, because it's just, like, my opinion, man, and it's probably only because this book was the one that got the "bad" publishing deal according to the podcast that led me here. The podcast full of the author's dark, dark laughter at how shit a deal he got. And I don't know, if he received more marketing support from the publisher (Tor) if that would mean more good reviews or bad reviews, but I do know this:
Tor made his books very small.
I'm basing this on the hardcover of book 2, assuming book 1 was published to the same dimensions. I tried to take some pictures of it next to other, "regular" sized hardcovers to illustrate this but the pictures don't properly capture the effect, which is this:
This book's hardcover is smaller than normal adult fantasy hardcovers (and adult hardcovers in general). In height and width, it's notably a tinier thing. It is, in fact, the same dimensions as a standard YA or Middle Grade hardcover. Is it a YA or Middle Grade book? It is not, but since the medium is the message, that's part of the visual impression I get when I see this book. The cover art, at least, does not convey YA or MG. The page margins are also tiny, thus cramming more words into each page than most other books. I've seen some of this in small press releases with clearly tighter profit margins, but for a Big Five publisher to do this is cheap.
I recently encountered the same "tiny book" effect recently with Blood of the Old Kings, also published by Tor. Clearly, this is a cost-saving approach the publisher is using on specific titles, and to me it conveys that they don't expect those books to see great success. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it communicates that lack of confidence to the reader and creates genre/marketing category confusion.
Eh, here's a picture anyway, of this book's sequel in hardcover next to another hardcover, and with some YA and MG books and adult fantasy hardcovers and a small press trade paperback. The books are aligned at the ends the open, the opposite of the spine. The book belly? Whatever it's called:
It doesn't necessarily look that tiny here, but believe me, when you pick it up off a shelf, it's like, "Why the heck is this book so little?"
In summary: I didn't like the book (but I finished it!), and also the book got a wonky print treatment that isn't helping it any. Unless other people like the format, what do I know, really.
Both the density of infusori on the page and expository dialogue eventually went mostly away. But dialogue never really became natural. Characters spoke and even thought artificially and at much greater length than made sense, especially when expressing sharp emotion. I didn't enjoy character interactions at any point, and characters themselves were basic and blandly either good or evil. Downtime scenes for character and relationship development made me cringe. I never bought into or enjoyed the experience of any character or plot development; it felt like ham-handedly forcing the characters to meet the requirements of the story outline at every turn. Action scenes were, eh, okay, but unexciting and made me want to skip to the outcome. This is not the writing that we like.
My experience throughout 95% percent of the book was one of lousiness. The closest book experience I can think of is Eye of Obscurance. That also felt, after a good start, simply lousy. I don't know how else to describe it, but it failed to fulfill any of the things that thrill me or impress me in other books. It probably fits in well with some older fantasy; I haven't read the Belgariad but this made me wonder if it was similar, something about more "classic" plot-driven fantasy. There were many points in the book where I was reminded of some other specific thing in fantasy media, which is fine if the point is to take inspiration from multiple sources and put them into a particular kind of story. But with the fantasy novels I have loved, I can't remember ever thinking, "This is like this other thing."
I feel a little bad leaving such a negative review but I can't be anything but honest (and my brain won't let me not review at all). I shouldn't have to feel bad though, because it's just, like, my opinion, man, and it's probably only because this book was the one that got the "bad" publishing deal according to the podcast that led me here. The podcast full of the author's dark, dark laughter at how shit a deal he got. And I don't know, if he received more marketing support from the publisher (Tor) if that would mean more good reviews or bad reviews, but I do know this:
Tor made his books very small.
I'm basing this on the hardcover of book 2, assuming book 1 was published to the same dimensions. I tried to take some pictures of it next to other, "regular" sized hardcovers to illustrate this but the pictures don't properly capture the effect, which is this:
This book's hardcover is smaller than normal adult fantasy hardcovers (and adult hardcovers in general). In height and width, it's notably a tinier thing. It is, in fact, the same dimensions as a standard YA or Middle Grade hardcover. Is it a YA or Middle Grade book? It is not, but since the medium is the message, that's part of the visual impression I get when I see this book. The cover art, at least, does not convey YA or MG. The page margins are also tiny, thus cramming more words into each page than most other books. I've seen some of this in small press releases with clearly tighter profit margins, but for a Big Five publisher to do this is cheap.
I recently encountered the same "tiny book" effect recently with Blood of the Old Kings, also published by Tor. Clearly, this is a cost-saving approach the publisher is using on specific titles, and to me it conveys that they don't expect those books to see great success. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it communicates that lack of confidence to the reader and creates genre/marketing category confusion.
Eh, here's a picture anyway, of this book's sequel in hardcover next to another hardcover, and with some YA and MG books and adult fantasy hardcovers and a small press trade paperback. The books are aligned at the ends the open, the opposite of the spine. The book belly? Whatever it's called:
It doesn't necessarily look that tiny here, but believe me, when you pick it up off a shelf, it's like, "Why the heck is this book so little?"
In summary: I didn't like the book (but I finished it!), and also the book got a wonky print treatment that isn't helping it any. Unless other people like the format, what do I know, really.