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elna17a9a 's review for:
Hero at the Fall
by Alwyn Hamilton
This is a review of the series as a whole, since I read them all pretty much successively. So there will be spoilers for the series (though if you're on this page, hopefully you've read the other two already). But in short: incredibly inventive setting let down by hopelessly cliche characters and average writing.
First, I adore the setting and the world. Wild West meets fantasy Middle East is a wonderful, fun, unique, and incredibly well-done merging of two popular genres that provide an incredible amount of ideas for Hamilton to play with. The myths of Djinn and the independence indicative of Wild West stories merge together incredibly well. The little bits we learned about the neighboring countries and their customs made me want to learn more.
However. That's about all I liked. The prose was a little purple and much too repetitive, even for the younger audience that Hamilton was aiming for. How many times did I need to read a variation of "the sand got everywhere" or "the sand was a part of you if you lived in the desert" or "Demdjinn don't lie" or "I can't lie, I'm a Demdjinn" (or mentions of Shazad's beauty, or Amani's blue eyes, or
SO MANY other things)?? I honestly feel like it was a least once a chapter. I understand motifs, but there's a difference between motifs and just flat-out repetition for no repetition's sake. Whenever Jin called Amani "Bandit" or "Blue Eyed-Bandit," it felt incredibly inauthentic. I understand teasing someone about a nickname they've earned, especially one as famous as that, but the way he did it and the situations he used it in was clunky (like, when he's asking her advice, or complimenting her, when it would have made much more natural sense to just use her name).
And I understand what Hamilton was trying to do when she interjected the myths in between chapters (though I wish she had done that in the first book as well, for consistency), but I didn't understand why their names weren't used. In some of the myths, the descriptors were used (The First One, The Sin Maker, etc.), but it seems like that is only the case because their names aren't known, since when they are known, the names are used (Princess Hawa, Ashra, etc.). So why didn't Hamilton use the characters names when she was recounting their myths? It's fine to call Hala "the Golden Girl" a few times (or Shazad "the Beautiful General," or Jin "the Foreign Prince"...), but not every single time. Using their names would make more sense with the idea that their stories will live on past their deaths in a meaningful way, especially in the case of Sam, who, as we learn, is eventually forgotten in his homeland but remembered (as the Nameless Boy, apparently??) in the desert.
And the characters were so incredibly cliche, and their plots so predictable. The only thing that didn't happen which I expected was that Jin didn't turn out to be a Demdjinn, which I was incredibly thankful for. Otherwise, of course he fell in love with Amani, and of course Ahmed was a kind, thoughtful, if unassertive ruler, and of course Shazad was beautiful but deadly, and of course Sam the wise-cracking thief would fall in love with her, and of course Amani and Jin were brought back to life once they "died." Nothing was unexpected when it came to the characters, their actions, or their development. Which, with a setting this inventive, is an incredible let down.
I would love to read this series written by a different author.
However. That's about all I liked. The prose was a little purple and much too repetitive, even for the younger audience that Hamilton was aiming for. How many times did I need to read a variation of "the sand got everywhere" or "the sand was a part of you if you lived in the desert" or "Demdjinn don't lie" or "I can't lie, I'm a Demdjinn" (or mentions of Shazad's beauty, or Amani's blue eyes, or
SO MANY other things)?? I honestly feel like it was a least once a chapter. I understand motifs, but there's a difference between motifs and just flat-out repetition for no repetition's sake. Whenever Jin called Amani "Bandit" or "Blue Eyed-Bandit," it felt incredibly inauthentic. I understand teasing someone about a nickname they've earned, especially one as famous as that, but the way he did it and the situations he used it in was clunky (like, when he's asking her advice, or complimenting her, when it would have made much more natural sense to just use her name).
And I understand what Hamilton was trying to do when she interjected the myths in between chapters (though I wish she had done that in the first book as well, for consistency), but I didn't understand why their names weren't used. In some of the myths, the descriptors were used (The First One, The Sin Maker, etc.), but it seems like that is only the case because their names aren't known, since when they are known, the names are used (Princess Hawa, Ashra, etc.). So why didn't Hamilton use the characters names when she was recounting their myths? It's fine to call Hala "the Golden Girl" a few times (or Shazad "the Beautiful General," or Jin "the Foreign Prince"...), but not every single time. Using their names would make more sense with the idea that their stories will live on past their deaths in a meaningful way, especially in the case of Sam, who, as we learn, is eventually forgotten in his homeland but remembered (as the Nameless Boy, apparently??) in the desert.
And the characters were so incredibly cliche, and their plots so predictable. The only thing that didn't happen which I expected was that Jin didn't turn out to be a Demdjinn, which I was incredibly thankful for. Otherwise, of course he fell in love with Amani, and of course Ahmed was a kind, thoughtful, if unassertive ruler, and of course Shazad was beautiful but deadly, and of course Sam the wise-cracking thief would fall in love with her, and of course Amani and Jin were brought back to life once they "died." Nothing was unexpected when it came to the characters, their actions, or their development. Which, with a setting this inventive, is an incredible let down.
I would love to read this series written by a different author.