Started: 05/08/21
Finished: 17/08/21
Spoilers: No
First off, big thanks to the publisher, Orbit, and Netgalley for letting me have the audiobook early. Apologies if I spell any names incorrectly, I don't have any physical reference.
This was my first Anthony Ryan book, so I've no idea if this is separate from his other series or set in the same world.
I struggled the whole time to connect and can't help think the only reason I finished it was because it was an audiobook, and also an arc, so I had an obligation to at least try to finish it.
That's not to say this is a bad book -- there're dozens of five stars reviews -- however, I don't think I was the right audience for this one.
Characters
We follow the life of Alwyn Scribe in an autobiographical narrative. Not my favourite, as I often feel that the characters delivering the story of their life oftentimes have pretty unexciting lives. Alwyn is no exception.
And yes, sure, there are certain interesting events that happen in Alwyn's life, but too often I felt that the interesting events were buffered by long stretches of mundanity. It almost lessens the impact of the more important events.
I mean at least, thank god, we skip over those years in the pit mine. I don't think I could have suffered an indeterminate amount of chapters of him learning to read while a zealot preaches at him.
I really liked Toria though. She was awesome and ballsy but not without fear. She felt well thought out and wasn't just another typical cookie-cutter female character. She was probably the only stand out character for me.
Plot
All that being said, I was willing to give Alwyn the benefit of the doubt and try to throw myself into his story. And to be fair, in the beginning, I was interested to see where things would lead him. I enjoyed his time with the outlaw band. Then things happened that I didn't expect and my interest doubled, thinking this would be some kind of brutal revenge plot, and I was totally here for it.
But then the whole pit mine arc happened and it felt like the brakes had been thrown on. It was around the 50% mark that I realised my focus on the story was slipping. For a time I blamed the fact that I was listening to an audiobook, so that must have been why I couldn't concentrate. Then I realised, maybe I'm just not finding the book engaging enough to keep my focus. Maybe I'm just finding it all a little...boring.
This feeling continued until the 60% mark, however after this point, the pacing improved. I found the introduction of the sack witch and any involving story arcs fascinating, but wished she'd been used a bit more.
Plot-wise, it's a bit too religious for my tastes. I actually really enjoy made-up religions in fantasy, but I'm not a fan when it's such a prominent part of the plot. Nothing wrong with it, and it's actually very well done in this book and shows real character growth. But for my own personal tastes, it dominated the story far too much.
The battle scene was also brilliant. Detailed and fast and fluid in pace. I love a well-written battle that doesn't hold back on the brutality and horrors of war, and this battle scene was truly great. However, as Alwyn is narrating his own story in past tense, I never felt the drama or anxieties that I would normally feel when reading a battle scene. I already knew Alwyn would survive it, he's narrating this story after all. Same in his final single combat battle. I just couldn't bring myself to invest because I knew he'd survive.
Setting
This is a vast, rich world populated by many different cultures. I could really feel how developed this world was. Great care has been taken to make this distinctive against other fantasy worlds.
I've noticed a lot of reviews and such branding this as high fantasy. But by definition, this is very much low fantasy in my book. Of course, it's not urban fantasy, it's still set in a secondary world, but it's a secondary world very reminiscent of our own, even down to the 'fantasy Scandinavian' culture in which an execution practice called 'Crimson Hawk' is performed, AKA, Blood Eagle. The magic in this world, if we can even call it such, is minimal. Besides the sack witch and the few mysterious things she does, there're no magical elements in the story. This isn't me complaining at all, just mentioning that I'd personally categorise this as low fantasy rather than high.
Writing Style
The writing is fantastic and feels very natural and comfortable within the genre. I feel like a fantasy pro has written this, so from the very start, I felt assured the storytelling was in safe, capable hands, even if it wasn't to my taste. Descriptions are vivid without being over-written. There's no denying this is excellently written with deliberate word choices that create strong imagery.
Because this autobiographical style is not my taste in narrative style, I think it inhibits my enjoyment somewhat. A narrator telling me what is happening, eluding to things that will happen in the future, whilst also calling me 'dear reader,' does nothing for me except slap a great big wall between me and immersion. It immediately reminds me that all I'm doing is reading a book, and I don't want to feel like I'm reading a book, I want to feel like I'm there, running alongside the characters in an unknown world.
I don't know what it is, but I struggle to fully connect myself to a character or world when it feels like the story is being told to me rather than me experiencing it first-hand with the character. I think it's cause the character themselves already knows what will happen, while I'm left in the dark. I much prefer to live in the moment with the characters and not be delivered a story second-hand.
So for this reason, due to my own very personal taste in narrative style, I couldn't connect to Alwyn as a character and therefore found myself investing very little into his tale. But despite everything, this was still a more compelling autobiography than Kvothe's.
Final Impression
Admittedly, not for me. But I can see this will be loved by many, many readers and I hope that's so.
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