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alohiel's reviews
363 reviews
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
Also mostly just writing this out for book club, so I remember my thoughts.
Negatives:
3.5
Notes:
I hybrid read this book (read audio and ebook at the same time) and it really made the experience for me. Kevin R. Free does an amazing job, and hearing it out loud helped it flow much better for me.
Also mostly just writing this out for book club, so I remember my thoughts.
Positives:
- The beautiful narration, there were many lines I ended up highlighting.
- How the beautiful narration of Demane's inner world contrasts to how everyone around him (including him) speaks out loud.
- The characters were all unique, and the use of different vernaculars made them feel even more so and made the world feel much larger than the little bit that we get to see.
- The narration: again, Kevin R. Free did an amazing job. One of my favourite audio book narrators.
- The setting is very interesting, and it packs a lot in to not very many pages. I enjoy when fantasy books sprinkle in a little bit of sci-fi, and I enjoyed learning about Demane's origins.
- Will pick up book #2 at some point, though it sounds like a prequel and I typically don't enjoy those.
Negatives:
- The ending didn't really hit for me. I don't mind an ambiguous or open ending, though I like them more in horror and lit fic than in SFF fiction. However this felt extremely abrupt, though I recognize that may be the point.
Death of a loved one is often abrupt and feels like an ending, and the events before that moment are also the end of human-Demane's existence. It just didn't feel like that was where the story was going, despite the grim setting and previous deaths. If Isa did actually die, it would have been nice to sit in that and feel with Demane for a page or two. I think this would have been a very solid 4 or 4.5 if the ending had been a little bit... more. - At times the non-linear narrative disoriented me. Not with any of the flashbacks, but a couple times I would think the characters were already at a place and then a page later, they would be just arriving.
- Mostly a me thing, but I was struggling hard with finding the flow of reading this before I picked up the audio book.
- The pacing in the middle third felt pretty slow, and the main conflict gets introduced pretty late.