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michaelmarshall's Reviews (251)
Terrifically imaginative and often moving. The relationship between Sophie and Bianca is really vivid, and the themes of rebellion and anti-xenophobia are tackled with a lot of subtlety.
I reviewed this for New Scientist and called it “a stone-cold masterpiece”:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133501-400-the-actual-star-review-a-masterpiece-of-imaginative-world-building/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133501-400-the-actual-star-review-a-masterpiece-of-imaginative-world-building/
This was very readable and absorbing, and I’m likely to read the sequels, but I did have two complaints.
First, the world-building is so predictable it verges on racial stereotyping: the Northmen are all unbelievably tough warriors, the southerners are decadent and corrupt, etc.
And second, it’s not a complete novel. I know it’s part of a trilogy, but it doesn’t really resolve any of its plotlines or even reach a climax: it just stops. In that sense it’s like Fellowship of the Ring, but FotR was never written as a standalone book, it just came out like that for behind-the-scenes publishing reasons. If you’re going to write an actual trilogy, each part should be distinct.
First, the world-building is so predictable it verges on racial stereotyping: the Northmen are all unbelievably tough warriors, the southerners are decadent and corrupt, etc.
And second, it’s not a complete novel. I know it’s part of a trilogy, but it doesn’t really resolve any of its plotlines or even reach a climax: it just stops. In that sense it’s like Fellowship of the Ring, but FotR was never written as a standalone book, it just came out like that for behind-the-scenes publishing reasons. If you’re going to write an actual trilogy, each part should be distinct.
This is a great big sprawling fantasy novel, with lots of vivid characters, multiple nations and religions, and 1000 years of backstory. And yet it all moves along at a rattling pace, with the exposition dotted in exactly when you need it. The central love story is properly moving and I felt some big feelings along the way - including an impressive level of tension over who would survive.
