Back again with some rather mixed reviews. Only two this month, as I still haven’t gotten around to finishing Lewis’s Perelandra yet.
3/5 Stars
Kingfall, by David Estes: Book 1 of The Kingfall Histories. This series puts the capital E in Epic Fantasy. From start to finish, it seeks to take the best and most classic elements of fantasy and elevate it to its highest highs whilst building up to and earning the surrealistic action with the utmost patience and brutally dark storytelling. Unlike most grimdark fantasy, this one is unabashedly patterned after the heroic Arthurian fantasy, replete with gleaming magic-forged swords and fated characters.
Does it try a little hard sometimes? In my opinion, yes. This is essentially a tale of fated heroes gone wrong, or perhaps a more “realistic” or “truthful” telling of a familiar story of magic and heroes. Estes is a phenomenal character writer, one of the strongest in my recent memory, yet he resorts to decisions, compromises and character stupidity—sheer, frustrating stupidity—that triggered my “cheapness alarms” on numerous occasions. He absolutely nails the character relatability, yet I believe he over-relies on miscommunication and tragedy in order to force our ensemble cast down certain paths. Sometimes it feels creative. But often just . . . infuriating beyond belief, and with little payoff.
There is also a very strange mix of wholesome content and . . . otherwise . . . represented here. Very little foul language, and genuinely wholesome themes strewn throughout (including some pro-life themes—bravo on that), yet there’s a heavy reliance on highly intimate (while non-explicit) romance. My biggest gripe in this regard is simply that the morality and messages of the book are . . . hard to pin down. Characters often do terrible things with implicit justification at best. This works against a heroic story. I had a similar complaint about John Gwynne’s The Faithful and the Fallen. And similarly to that series, another gripe I’ll add is this strange paradox of backwards-yet-progressive, where civilizations like the Dragonriders of Travail are shown as being extremely primitive and yet seem to have very Western, progressive sensibilities. (Co-ed/egalitarian social workings.)
Now, I know I’m sounding highly critical, so I will pause to list some positives, and they are very strong positives: Estes’ prose is near-flawless, flowing smoothly between precise description, excellent character introspection, sympathy, dread, and pulse-pounding action. It rarely skips a beat, sucking you in from the start. Tim Gerard Reynolds’ perfect-as-always performance helped a lot. The way David writes emotion is just . . . something else. The only word I can think of to describe his character writing is “powerful.” Heavy, perhaps. The character arcs perhaps not quite so much, at least until the end. The world is massive and has that bewitching sense of scope that tickles at secrets beyond your current understanding, or beyond the lands currently on display. Many races, familiar but well-implemented, and in particularly the dragon riders of Travail. This is largely because he goes for the classic Pern dragonmen rather than the newer, more magical brand where powers come with the package. Plus Dragonmaster Dane (forgive me if I misspell anything, as I listened to the audiobook), who along with his dragon is by far the most enjoyable character of the ensemble cast. Danius may be a victim of a dorky naming convention, but he’s hilarious and quite charming.
Beyond that, know that this story is very, very dark. On a graphic level, but more so on an emotional level. One storyline in particular is about an immortal “godling” who is blessed/cursed with the ability to heal any injuries, and has thus lived 400 years as a traded slave between powerful people seeking only to use her, and is a prisoner of her own empathy as the book’s main villain inflicts atrocious emotional pain on her not only as a means of torturing his enemies but for his own pleasure. (May I just say King Cronus Gaard is one of the most odious, evil characters in existence.) I was heavily reminded of Szeth from The Stormlight Archive, although I’d give Sanderson the edge there as he managed it without getting graphic on how horribly he was treated/used.
Overall, when it comes down to it, Kingfall is an incredibly strong novel in many ways that largely turned me off for certain specific reasons—not entirely but almost spoiling the entire book in my memory, though I think the characters and their painful, highly engaging storylines are too memorable for that.
2.5/5 Stars
And this would be Wool, Book 1 of the post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi Thriller Silo trilogy by Hugh Howey. Yes, the oh-so-famous Silo series that is now an Apple TV+ show. Let’s just be honest here—I have no idea how this got so popular. Even the name of this novel is strange and misleading considering it only applies to a certain character in the book’s second (very short) arc. I expected far more. It’s all over the place in many ways, frequently trading off main characters for new ones, and is highly unsatisfying save for a rather tacked-on ending. In a bit of unintentional post-mortem, I discovered that the book was originally self-published as a series of 5 small books, then bundled into one after gaining traction. The sequel appears to be a prequel, actually, which is uh . . . interesting. It sounds a bit more appealing, honestly.
This book was just not what it was sold as. Some “revelations” were really just dead ends or obvious things disguised as mystery. From a scientific perspective, it had some cool ideas but was quite disappointing. (Thinking of a certain thing I was really hoping to see fleshed out, but nope, it was more of a red herring if anything.) Wool is a bit rambly, taking a while to identify itself and the true plot. There’s also a problem for which I’ll easily dock at least half a star: around halfway through the book, the villain suddenly drops 5-10 F-bombs quite unnecessarily, and from then on the language was significantly worse, which left a rather bad taste in my mouth. I mean, I’m not here to say that authors aren’t allowed to use whatever kind of language they want, just at least be up-front about it like Andy Weir.
Now, I won’t pretend this isn’t an impressive novel on some levels. The sheer amount of characters he crams into this thriller is staggering, and the miniature world of the Silo is very carefully crafted, detailing nearly every facet of the people’s lives—although I’d still like to know what in the world his “lottery” system was supposed to be, because that was never explained. But it is a primarily and laudably character-driven story, and I think many would also describe the characters and their stories as being very . . . human. In a good way, that sort of desire to know that there are other people out there struggling against life or jerks at work and society, etc. Personally, that doesn’t appeal to me all that much. I tire of Fantasy and Sci-Fi stories that are really just human angst and pettiness wrapped up in a bowtie, as I want more out of it. Wool does not give more.
Anything more I could say about the book would only be negative. The whole premise, while cool on the surface, appeared only more laughably pessimistic as the story went on (except for that deus ex machina at the end), and there was never even a shred of an attempt to explain it. I may check out Book 2, Shift, at some point, just out of curiosity, since it is supposed to be a prequel explaining events before. We’ll see.
— Jacob Gamber