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micheala 's review for:
A Crown for Cold Silver
by Alex Marshall
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was my first time venturing into Grim Dark Fantasy and I don't really know who I feel about it. To be fair, I read the first half of this book back in the summer and finished it off this week, so a huge break in the middle.
I really did enjoy the world-building, however I'm personally a fan of the info-dump at the start of a fantasy story to really give you an idea of the world/magic right away and unfortunately (for me anyways) this doesn't really do that. It's more of a slow trickle of information (like 2/3 of the way through and you're still finding new key information out).
I went into this book knowing way less then I normally would as all the back tells you is:
"It was all going so nicely, right up until the massacre.
Five villains.
One legendary general.
A final quest for vengeance."
Let me tell you, that is what you get and it is as awesome of a premise as it sounds.
Most of the things that I ended up not enjoying as much, are tropes and factors that I think make this grim dark rather than an epic fantasy. The characters are all very crude and kinda gross, but I'm assuming that's part of the sub-genre and so not something I knocked it for. I did like the tension between the government, the rebels and the dominant religion. Personally the Chain was what I viewed as the most evil fraction at play, but I could easily see how others would pick differently.
What I did knock it down for, was that by the time I got towards the end (last 150-200 pages) where everything is ramping up and all the different plot lines are coming together, I found my investment in the story waning. There was one reveal that happened a little too soon in my opinion, that meant that I could figure out roughly how this first book was going to end.
I own the second book in the trilogy so most likely I'll end up continuing eventually. I'm going to (eventually) give The Blade Itself a shot to see if I might like a different grim dark fantasy more, but from this experience, I don't see it becoming one of my staple genres.
I really did enjoy the world-building, however I'm personally a fan of the info-dump at the start of a fantasy story to really give you an idea of the world/magic right away and unfortunately (for me anyways) this doesn't really do that. It's more of a slow trickle of information (like 2/3 of the way through and you're still finding new key information out).
I went into this book knowing way less then I normally would as all the back tells you is:
"It was all going so nicely, right up until the massacre.
Five villains.
One legendary general.
A final quest for vengeance."
Let me tell you, that is what you get and it is as awesome of a premise as it sounds.
Most of the things that I ended up not enjoying as much, are tropes and factors that I think make this grim dark rather than an epic fantasy. The characters are all very crude and kinda gross, but I'm assuming that's part of the sub-genre and so not something I knocked it for. I did like the tension between the government, the rebels and the dominant religion. Personally the Chain was what I viewed as the most evil fraction at play, but I could easily see how others would pick differently.
What I did knock it down for, was that by the time I got towards the end (last 150-200 pages) where everything is ramping up and all the different plot lines are coming together, I found my investment in the story waning. There was one reveal that happened a little too soon in my opinion, that meant that I could figure out roughly how this first book was going to end.
I own the second book in the trilogy so most likely I'll end up continuing eventually. I'm going to (eventually) give The Blade Itself a shot to see if I might like a different grim dark fantasy more, but from this experience, I don't see it becoming one of my staple genres.