Scan barcode
A review by kittyg
The Way Into Chaos by Harry Connolly
2.0
This is one of the books I read as part of #SPFBO and I am certainly a bit torn on this one. I read the whole thing, and liked about half of it (hence my rating of 2.5*s). I definitely feel like this one was just so mixed for me, at times I found myself sucked in and other times I was just a bit out of the plot and it wasn't grabbing me...but I can't say for sure why...
This is set in a fairly large fantasy world where there's lots of smaller kingdoms and lands spread out. We are following the royals, namely the prince, Lar, and his cousins, soldiers and family. When the story starts he's living a fairly happy life waiting to become King and in training, but quickly a trade goes badly wrong, a portal is opened, and evil beasts called Grunts are unleashed on the world. It's quickly discovered that the royal family (all except Lar) have been killed and Lar and his friends need to flee and try to get help, but once the chaos starts it spreads across the land.
What I liked about this was the relationship between Cazia and Ivy as the story went on. Caz is a young woman who has been held as a hostage all her life but has been learning the magic of this world and she's a keen scholar in the making. She's super loyal to Lar and loves him as a brother, so when the chaos of the beasts starts and events force her to separate from Lar and look out for Ivy (his betrothed) she does just that.
Ivy is a super young character, only 12, and yet she's also very sensible for her age and for the problems which are facing her. I was a little irked by her at first, as she took her time to develop, but when she did she became one of my favourites and seeing her and Caz form a strong trust and bond was a great part of the story for me.
The other plotline follows Lar and Try Trejohn Treygar who is kind of a mentor/soldier/bodyguard to him. I really found I had a disconnect from the character of Lar and Trejohn Treygar, probably the reason why I didn't love about half of this book, and so I just found this plot to be less interesting overall. I do think we get to see a fair bit of the land through their eyes, and we encounter quite a bit of fighting and politics in their story too, and possibly this took over the action and character development a bit to the point where I just didn't have a lot to connect with for these two.
Overall, it's an interesting story of what would happen were a portal to open and dump out crazy monsters into the world, but it left me feeling a little bit disconnected and although I think there's certainly potential and strong writing at times, it just didn't capture my attention like I wanted it to. I gave it a 2.5*s in the end and so for SPFBO it gets a 5/10*s from me.
This is set in a fairly large fantasy world where there's lots of smaller kingdoms and lands spread out. We are following the royals, namely the prince, Lar, and his cousins, soldiers and family. When the story starts he's living a fairly happy life waiting to become King and in training, but quickly a trade goes badly wrong, a portal is opened, and evil beasts called Grunts are unleashed on the world. It's quickly discovered that the royal family (all except Lar) have been killed and Lar and his friends need to flee and try to get help, but once the chaos starts it spreads across the land.
What I liked about this was the relationship between Cazia and Ivy as the story went on. Caz is a young woman who has been held as a hostage all her life but has been learning the magic of this world and she's a keen scholar in the making. She's super loyal to Lar and loves him as a brother, so when the chaos of the beasts starts and events force her to separate from Lar and look out for Ivy (his betrothed) she does just that.
Ivy is a super young character, only 12, and yet she's also very sensible for her age and for the problems which are facing her. I was a little irked by her at first, as she took her time to develop, but when she did she became one of my favourites and seeing her and Caz form a strong trust and bond was a great part of the story for me.
The other plotline follows Lar and Try Trejohn Treygar who is kind of a mentor/soldier/bodyguard to him. I really found I had a disconnect from the character of Lar and Trejohn Treygar, probably the reason why I didn't love about half of this book, and so I just found this plot to be less interesting overall. I do think we get to see a fair bit of the land through their eyes, and we encounter quite a bit of fighting and politics in their story too, and possibly this took over the action and character development a bit to the point where I just didn't have a lot to connect with for these two.
Overall, it's an interesting story of what would happen were a portal to open and dump out crazy monsters into the world, but it left me feeling a little bit disconnected and although I think there's certainly potential and strong writing at times, it just didn't capture my attention like I wanted it to. I gave it a 2.5*s in the end and so for SPFBO it gets a 5/10*s from me.