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A review by wunkymatts
Mordew by Alex Pheby
3.0
I wanted a book to get lost in. I wanted a thick, dense fantasy that spun a world around me so completely I would live there more than the real one. At first I thought this might be the one. It started so well, the world was wonderfully realised, but then it started to run out of steam.
The pacing was patchy, certainty in the second half of a book (which clocks in at over 500 pages) when it really needed to keep momentum. Some parts dragged, others seemed to be rushed through. There was also a very strange section written in a completely different style, and I'm not convinced the same information could not have been shown in keeping with the rest of the book.
Also the low level misogyny was starting to grate. Most femal characters (of which there were vanishingly few anyway) were manipulative sex workers and I really didn't appreciate being told about how disgusting the female 'oestrus' smelled.
I think the world Pheby created is wonderfully rich and detailed, and that gorgeous setting is probably what sustained me through the book, but it was a slog. There is an extensive glossary (100+ pages) at the end which explains a lot more about the world of Mordew which I intend to read at a later date.
The pacing was patchy, certainty in the second half of a book (which clocks in at over 500 pages) when it really needed to keep momentum. Some parts dragged, others seemed to be rushed through. There was also a very strange section written in a completely different style, and I'm not convinced the same information could not have been shown in keeping with the rest of the book.
Also the low level misogyny was starting to grate. Most femal characters (of which there were vanishingly few anyway) were manipulative sex workers and I really didn't appreciate being told about how disgusting the female 'oestrus' smelled.
I think the world Pheby created is wonderfully rich and detailed, and that gorgeous setting is probably what sustained me through the book, but it was a slog. There is an extensive glossary (100+ pages) at the end which explains a lot more about the world of Mordew which I intend to read at a later date.