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A review by joeri81
Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Woodring Stover
4.0
I started "Blade of Tyshalle" with the knowledge that not everyone likes this book as much as "Heroes Die". I always thought those people must be wrong and Blade would be just as awesome as "Heroes Die". That one had great writing, amazing characters (Caine!!!), a very intruiging world, a good story throwing you from one action sequence into the next, a lot of blood and gore and a great ending on top of all this. It would be difficult for Blade to match all that, but more of the same would still be great. Problem is ... Blade isn't entirely more of the same and I think that's exactly the reason why I didn't like it as much as the first.
I still liked Blade a lot (otherwise I wouldn't have given it four stars). It has many of the strong points from the first book, starting with an interesting world that's even more fleshed out now than it was in the first. The writing is still great and we still have a lot of amazing characters; Caine and Tan'elKoth are great characters returning from the first book, but there are off course some great new characters as well (e.g. Raithe). Also Kosall plays a very important role again in all the events throughout the story. BUT ...
I still feel the first book had more amazing and fleshed out characters than the second one has. Further, it needs to be mentioned that Caine is a different man after the events in the previous book. It takes a long time to get some glimpses of the Caine we know from the first book. With Caine being one of my all time favourite characters this was a bit of a let down; it seems my expectations weren’t really in line with the actual story. But I can admit that Stover did a great job with his writing; his 'broken' Caine was very convincing, as were Caine's motivations throughout the book, even until the very last chapter. Once more it is emphasized that Caine really strives for his goals without any regard to the consequences for anything or anyone else. This makes for a great character!
The story is good as well. In "Heroes Die" the story was clear from the start, but this time Stover really takes his time to built his story and it takes a while before all the pieces fall in place. Stover is very ambitious with Blade and throws in a lot of ideas, some philisophy, multiple plot twists ... and at times it felt to me that he dragged it out a bit too much. After finishing I can say it was maybe necessary to do so, but at the moment itself I didn't especially like it. Also because it didn't always have a good influence on the pacing of the story.
Luckily there are plenty of great action scenes throughout the book that reminded me a lot of the first book. The number of such scenes has however been turned down a bit. The story that's being told is very different, more profound, and needs less of such scenes. Still, the ones we have are very thrilling. What finally pulled me over to REALLY like the book was the ending. This was very nicely planned out by Stover; it's a very long sequence of events that turns out perfectly. Once the roller coaster starts, it's all action-packed mayhem. It's also here that we can see Caine really shine again and recognize the character like we've got to know him from the first book. I thought it was absolutely amazing how everything played out in the end.
I highly recommend this book, but everyone should be aware that it doesn't provide exactly the same as the first book. This irked me a bit at the start, but the more I think about it the more I appreciate "Blade of Tyshalle" for what it is. I'm definitely going to reread it somewhere in the future, and now that I know what to expect, I think I'm going to like it even more on a reread.
Rating: 8/10
I still liked Blade a lot (otherwise I wouldn't have given it four stars). It has many of the strong points from the first book, starting with an interesting world that's even more fleshed out now than it was in the first. The writing is still great and we still have a lot of amazing characters; Caine and Tan'elKoth are great characters returning from the first book, but there are off course some great new characters as well (e.g. Raithe). Also Kosall plays a very important role again in all the events throughout the story. BUT ...
I still feel the first book had more amazing and fleshed out characters than the second one has. Further, it needs to be mentioned that Caine is a different man after the events in the previous book. It takes a long time to get some glimpses of the Caine we know from the first book. With Caine being one of my all time favourite characters this was a bit of a let down; it seems my expectations weren’t really in line with the actual story. But I can admit that Stover did a great job with his writing; his 'broken' Caine was very convincing, as were Caine's motivations throughout the book, even until the very last chapter. Once more it is emphasized that Caine really strives for his goals without any regard to the consequences for anything or anyone else. This makes for a great character!
The story is good as well. In "Heroes Die" the story was clear from the start, but this time Stover really takes his time to built his story and it takes a while before all the pieces fall in place. Stover is very ambitious with Blade and throws in a lot of ideas, some philisophy, multiple plot twists ... and at times it felt to me that he dragged it out a bit too much. After finishing I can say it was maybe necessary to do so, but at the moment itself I didn't especially like it. Also because it didn't always have a good influence on the pacing of the story.
Luckily there are plenty of great action scenes throughout the book that reminded me a lot of the first book. The number of such scenes has however been turned down a bit. The story that's being told is very different, more profound, and needs less of such scenes. Still, the ones we have are very thrilling. What finally pulled me over to REALLY like the book was the ending. This was very nicely planned out by Stover; it's a very long sequence of events that turns out perfectly. Once the roller coaster starts, it's all action-packed mayhem. It's also here that we can see Caine really shine again and recognize the character like we've got to know him from the first book. I thought it was absolutely amazing how everything played out in the end.
I highly recommend this book, but everyone should be aware that it doesn't provide exactly the same as the first book. This irked me a bit at the start, but the more I think about it the more I appreciate "Blade of Tyshalle" for what it is. I'm definitely going to reread it somewhere in the future, and now that I know what to expect, I think I'm going to like it even more on a reread.
Rating: 8/10