Hello, fellow readers. I’ve been doing a bit more reading than usual lately.
5/5 Stars
3.5/5 Stars
Ruin and Wrath by John Gwynne, books three and four of The Faithful and the Fallen. This series . . . whew. It’s something. Loads of characters, whose threads are interwoven expertly throughout the story and each of whom somehow retains relevance. Ruin is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time, surpassing its predecessors, and Wrath does not let up the implacable countdown to the doomsday battle between the the forces of Elyon and the forces of Asroth, the Ben-Elim and the Kadoshim.
It’s definitely been an epic ride.
Let’s start with Ruin. Ruin was amazing. Five out of five stars, I’ll just hand it over. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s a near-perfect novel. The “pre-final” battle near the end is one of the most adrenaline-inducing battle sequences I’ve ever read, and features Corban finally playing the storybook hero you always wanted him to be. And wow, does he ever. That scene was cool. Afterward comes a very . . . interesting twist. I can’t dock points for it, as it leads into the fourth book with a big question mark.
Wrath deftly takes the baton, escalating the great scuffle for the seven shiny McGuffins (sorry, gotta bash on them a little bit). Each conflict positions the characters closer to the final battlegrounds, where the rest of the book delivers the expected climax as more and more armies pour in. As ever, the writing is overall top-notch, each character viewpoint smooth, the action extremely well-drawn (sometimes a bit too well).
But here come the negatives. Oh, I have grievances.
The way Gwynne showcases the brutality of medieval combat is just over the top. I read phrases like “with a spray of blood” so often that I made a game of predicting it, and . . . come on, what’s up with everyone going for the groin in every fight? This especially conflicts with the very PG story outline, where a boy learns to take up his heroic destiny and fulfill a prophecy, and they all have the Seven Treasures to collect and fight over to stop Asroth from taking over world. The villains are very clear-cut, and good and evil are usually black-and-white. This is middle-grade stuff, almost corny at times (though he pulls it off). But the violence level breaks all pretense of kid-friendliness.
Much of the terminology becomes tedious. Nobody has a father or mother, they have a da and a mam (which are Irish/Gaelic?). There are no children—they’re bairns (which is Scottish). And even the Israeli/Mongol horse warriors from secret Tel Assar . . . yeah, they each have a da and a bairn. It comes off a bit silly.
Something that really showed in this last book, though, was the purposefulness of each hero/villain rivalry and how Gwynne saved their satisfying moment until then. There were really only two villains whose storylines were resolved till now, and every time another one was pushed back with cheap villain plot armor just felt . . . bad. Also during the epic, multi-segmented battle at Drassil (no spoilers), the way he integrates each character’s satisfying moment with specific villains felt forced at times. That said, hats off to him for executing it smoothly all told. Sometimes you have to balance “natural” and “satisfying”, and I was pleased with just how satisfying the end was. It sat quite well with me personally.
Another flaw that still bugs me is the magic, or “earth power” . . . A certain duo had a particular storyline going that just sort of disappeared. In fact, one character had a very dark arc set up in Book Three with unsettling indications, and . . . yeah, nothing ever came of it. Literally nothing.
But anyway, the final book was disappointing for me but still did not ruin a terrific series, thanks largely to the superb final ending.
5/5 Stars
Drumindor by Michael J. Sullivan. As with most of his books, this is definitely written for adults, as there is some sexual content. (Some fitting, some in poorer taste, but none that I would call smut.) This is book five of a prequel series to his magnum opus, Ryria Revelations, and is a standalone tale of the escapades of one of the best duos in adult fantasy.
I want to be clear here—this is a respectful 3.5. Michael J. Sullivan is one of my favorite authors, but I can’t just rate all his books highly. This one is weaker on the narrative side due to bloat and painfully slow pacing, though very strong in worldbuilding and atmosphere and humor. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Now, that’s just looking at it objectively. And as a side-note, Tim Gerard Reynolds delivers—as usual—a magnificent performance. I know people like Michael Kramer, and I do too, but I think Reynolds might take the cake for best audiobook narrator. As a long-time fan, I loved it. But as book five in a prequel series meant for both new and veteran readers . . . I could not possibly recommend it as a starter book due to its snail pace. This book is a celebration of everything Ryria, with a little bit from all across the world and history of Elan packed into one fan-pleasing volume. I’m glad he wrote it.
4/5 Stars
And here we have the famed, the first, the one and only Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb, Book One of the Farseer Trilogy and the first tale in her wider Realm of the Elderlings. This series is so legendary, yet seemed so drab and boring to me every time I thought about checking it out.
It’s not . . . if you like slow-paced books. Enough of the book (a sizeable chunk) basically feels like an elaborate prologue that some readers will unfortunately DNF it, but once you get into it, it has a magnetic pull that only such a personal tale can create. Similarly to, say, The Name of the Wind.
First off, it’s not really about assassins. Certainly not the flashy, unrealistic D&D ones. This novel would be so much less if that were the case. Rather, it’s about politics, intrigue, stable boys, and animal . . . all from the eyes of an illegitimate heir whom everyone wants to use in their own way. Hobb is known for her character work, and now I see why. This is not a story about characters—the characters are the story. Each one with their own motivations, allegiances, emotions, contradictions. It’s fascinating to see her setting up the people of her world in ways that seem innocuous at first, but then the layers are stripped back and you begin to see how far the ties of each go. This prince knows this person, but don’t tell anyone, and never mention so-and-so . . . The multiple lives that the boy/fitz/Fitz (he doesn’t have a name, so we’re fortunate she wrote it in first-person) juggles, each one earning him both endearment from some and ostracism from many, is what really makes this tale work.
What can I say? It’s a classic, and it’s easy to see why. Small criticisms: The narrator I listened to was boring as chalk on toast. . . This next one is more subjective. Some of the male characters can feel a bit feminine at times, reacting more calmly or—often—more emotionally than I would expect. I feel like the author, being a woman, simply wrote it with a very different “lens” than the typical male fantasy authors, focusing on the quiet, the hidden, the emotional side of life rather than the gritty, the concrete, the action. Sometimes characters act erratically, prone to wild emotion, lending them a sense of random realism, but at a price equal to the amount of head-scratching it prompts from the reader.
Were the beginning less meandering and the (admittedly beautiful) prose a bit more to my taste, I would give this a 4.5 at least, but I’m settling on 4. I have high hopes for the rest of the series.
Aside from these, I’m getting into a bit of nonfiction, but I haven’t finished any just yet.
— Jacob Gamber