Scan barcode
anna_pengu's review
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Aelis as the main character is possibly the most insufferable and awful characters I can think of in my recent reads. She is unabashedly rude, dismissive, condescending, and threatening to anyone around her at any moment. I was floored by the way she was written as being a loathsome human being, one who flaunts and uses their wealth and status, specifically her title as a count's daughter and elite graduate, on several occasions to verbally bully others into doing what she wants. Or even magically compelling people regardless.
To give specific examples from different parts of the book...
Pg.98: "But ordering folk about like that, confining them to their homes, it's..." [side character Rus offering a counter to Aelis' out of touch methods]. "Well within my rights and authority, and what's more, is it an accomplished fact, so I'll take no more whining over it," Aelis said.
Instances like this wherein Aelis takes differing opinions and comments towards her as some massive insult to her ego happen several times, each with Aelis shutting the other person down and never allowing any sort of disagreement whatsoever. She labels it whining, insults people by saying they know far less than her because she studied for years at the Lyceum, is their given Warden, etc. She even reflects inwardly a couple times throughout the book that she knows she has no patience, yet never strives to work on this failing. These problems are present all the way through the end.
Pg. 101 Maurenia watched them go before turning her startling eyes back to Aelis, who had to resist shivering. "What do you think the boxes might tell you?"
"More than they tell someone who is not Lyceum-trained," Aelis replied coldly.
Again, we see Aelis regarding people rudely because they aren't trained or as well-learned as she is. By this point in the book, I was beginning to despise this character. She was shaping up to be a bully cop type of character.
Later, a traveling band of adventurers runs into an issue with their gold loot, and needs to have it confiscated by Aelis to investigate the matter. She previously offered them a sort of written bank note that will cover the cost of the lost gold, yet becomes absurdly angry when the adventurers' leader inquires about it before they leave. This becomes a common trend. Aelis is quick to anger for seemingly no reason. Sorry for the long quote, but I need to include it to show her ridiculous attitude and behavior.
"If you want to leave before I return, then you'll do it without any letters to any bankers in my name," Aelis snapped. "I've got people to attend to." [the people she looks down on constantly]
"That really won't do, Warden...Promises were made. I'm going to have to insist."
Aelis whirled back into the room, her hand falling to the hilt of her sword, eyes flashing. "The only one of us with any right to insist on any gods-damned thing, Timmuk Dobrusz, is me. Your payment is neither my priority nor my problem. The assault a member of your company has twice made upon me will become both if you say another f-ing word. I will begin by arresting you and seizing your property in order to pay back damages to the people of the village, and that's before I decide if I put you to an inquest for multiple crimes."
Again, this is all after this party came by coins they had no idea were enchanted, Aelis knew this, and still flings about righteous judgement, and threatens violence to a dwarf just trying to make her live up to the own promise she made to write a bank note.
There are so many more examples of Aelis throwing around her weight towards others who are harmless, actively trying to help a different character, to a degree that I honestly don't know if the author was trying to write a character people would like or despise.
Unfortunately, the plot also tends to work conveniently to highlight Aelis' supposed brilliance in her spell arts, but I never felt convinced or impressed for that matter. The worldbuilding shows some promise but mostly comes about through vague dialogue bits or Aelis talking to herself (which she does, frequently). Conclusions are wrapped up way too neatly and Aelis is never truly challenged and it only seems to feed into her ego.The plot "twist" towards the end is very predictable when you meet a certain character early on, and the last 100 pages is more like a setup for the second book, which I will not be reading even if all other books burned away.
To give specific examples from different parts of the book...
Instances like this wherein Aelis takes differing opinions and comments towards her as some massive insult to her ego happen several times, each with Aelis shutting the other person down and never allowing any sort of disagreement whatsoever. She labels it whining, insults people by saying they know far less than her because she studied for years at the Lyceum, is their given Warden, etc. She even reflects inwardly a couple times throughout the book that she knows she has no patience, yet never strives to work on this failing. These problems are present all the way through the end.
Pg. 101
"More than they tell someone who is not Lyceum-trained," Aelis replied coldly.
Again, we see Aelis regarding people rudely because they aren't trained or as well-learned as she is. By this point in the book, I was beginning to despise this character. She was shaping up to be a bully cop type of character.
"If you want to leave before I return, then you'll do it without any letters to any bankers in my name," Aelis snapped. "I've got people to attend to." [the people she looks down on constantly]
"That really won't do, Warden...Promises were made. I'm going to have to insist."
Aelis whirled back into the room, her hand falling to the hilt of her sword, eyes flashing. "The only one of us with any right to insist on any gods-damned thing, Timmuk Dobrusz, is me. Your payment is neither my priority nor my problem. The assault a member of your company has twice made upon me will become both if you say another f-ing word. I will begin by arresting you and seizing your property in order to pay back damages to the people of the village, and that's before I decide if I put you to an inquest for multiple crimes."
Again, this is all after this party came by coins they had no idea were enchanted, Aelis knew this, and still flings about righteous judgement, and threatens violence to a dwarf just trying to make her live up to the own promise she made to write a bank note.
There are so many more examples of Aelis throwing around her weight towards others who are harmless, actively trying to help a different character, to a degree that I honestly don't know if the author was trying to write a character people would like or despise.
Unfortunately, the plot also tends to work conveniently to highlight Aelis' supposed brilliance in her spell arts, but I never felt convinced or impressed for that matter. The worldbuilding shows some promise but mostly comes about through vague dialogue bits or Aelis talking to herself (which she does, frequently). Conclusions are wrapped up way too neatly and Aelis is never truly challenged and it only seems to feed into her ego.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
Moderate: Blood
wandering_not_lost's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
2.5
I felt like this book was a 4-star story encased in a 2-star narrative, and I found myself unclear on so many things that I couldn't really say the book had done what it came here to do.
The world building is interesting in a few ways but in others feels generic. There was a recent war with neighboring orcs that resulted in the orcs winning (I guess?) a no-man's-land between them where only somewhat-disreputable adventurers go to plunder whatever riches have been left behind. The book's treatment of differing degrees of PTSD suffered by multiple characters who fought in the war and have since returned home felt well done. The magic is pretty much standard D&Desque schools of magic with leveled spells and daily spell allotments. Likewise we see through many long flashbacks that there is some kind of magical education school system, as well as some kind of Warden system, the Wardens being what appears to be the only lawgiving system that the frontier ever sees.
Warden Aelis is a noble who nonetheless makes the most of her backwater posting. She's unexpectedly scrappy and tough (perhaps a touch too much so, since hardly any challenge fazes her for long and several times she appears to do what are framed as impossible things for no clear reason). Nonetheless, she does her job somewhat testily but admirably as one thing then another needs her attention. I liked her as a character, and also liked one of the side characters, Tun, who she goes on a bit of an expedition with for about the middle 50% of the book. That expedition is the 4-star story, which I really liked. Tun and Aelis are very different people, but they mesh well and play off each other charmingly as they warm to and learn about each other. I'd have taken an entire book of the Aelis and Tun Show, but unfortunately, their arc was treated as less important than the much more slowly developing (and less interesting to me) stories about a rogue Warden's plots, Aelis' infatuation with a pretty mercenary woman, and some political maneuvering happening in the background.
My disinterest in these other plot arcs was mostly because some of the background and Aelis' strongly held opinions and decisions aren't really explained well. By way of example: the town asks for a Warden. Aelis is sent to the town in response, and they are laughably unprepared for her, to the point they lodge her in a tower without even a functioning door. This is played for laughs, but it's just the first of many times I went "why would this be like this?" in this book: why would the town have asked for a Warden when they didn't have a place prepared for her (or, as several characters seem to suggest, even need her?) Why wouldn't there have been a note sent back to them that their request had been approved, so get the Warden's legally-mandated house ready! Why doesn't the Archmage like Aelis and where did their enmity start? Who actually does Aelis report to? The Archmage? The Wardens? Are they one and the same? Why would a dungeon delving adventurer group have a huge ass arbalest and still haul it around when they turn into essentially the frontier mailman? Why would Aelis not have immediately ordered things like winter clothes? Why would she assume that it's fine to take a super competent and useful guide with her on one Warden quest but not another? Why, when she is not trained for winter wilderness adventures, would she decide that no, OBVIOUSLY this vague order she's received means that she needs to go on a near-suicidal trek, alone, through the winter wilderness, against the specific recommendations of her super competent guide? I mean...why not wait for spring? All of these questions just leave some of Aelis' actions oddly unexplained.
Also unexplained are the many pages devoted to flashbacks of Aelis' training, which feel overlong for how little they informed the main story. I get the sense that they're there to set up a future book that involves her teachers, but in THIS book, they seem kind of overdone.
Finally, the most jarring unexplained thing for me was the romantic subplot, which I just didn't buy. Aelis fell in lust at first sight with Maurenia when not knowing anything about her except she was pretty. Which...ok, that happens. It's eye-rollingly trite, but ok. But then the book doesn't weave any sort of character development for Maurenia into the rest of the story. Maurenia remains an enigma, to the point that when she kind of leans into the relationship at an odd time--when it's really obvious that Aelis has a lot going on and is kind of exhausted--that I actually wondered if Maurenia had some sort of under handed motive afoot to try to distract Aelis from her work. But no, she just had...odd timing? The narrative focus on that love plot is then derailed by another emotional tie with Tun (which takes up way more of the book than the interactions with Maurenia). It was a kind of mixed signal I was getting as a reader: I was being TOLD that Maurenia's relationship was important (for reasons not well developed), but I was being SHOWN (for reasons QUITE well developed) that her relationship with Tun was important. But yet Maurenia's relationship was the Important True Love and her relationship with Tun was a "friendship" of so little importance to Aelis that after she's done helping Tun, she doesn't have any contact with him for months. (Let's just say, if this were a dating sim, I know which person I would have romanced, and it would not have been the one Aelis picked!)
In the end, I was left feeling like the author wrote a very interesting novella...and then encased it in enough other stuff to make a book - I loved the novella, was much more "meh" on the rest of the book.
The world building is interesting in a few ways but in others feels generic. There was a recent war with neighboring orcs that resulted in the orcs winning (I guess?) a no-man's-land between them where only somewhat-disreputable adventurers go to plunder whatever riches have been left behind. The book's treatment of differing degrees of PTSD suffered by multiple characters who fought in the war and have since returned home felt well done. The magic is pretty much standard D&Desque schools of magic with leveled spells and daily spell allotments. Likewise we see through many long flashbacks that there is some kind of magical education school system, as well as some kind of Warden system, the Wardens being what appears to be the only lawgiving system that the frontier ever sees.
Warden Aelis is a noble who nonetheless makes the most of her backwater posting. She's unexpectedly scrappy and tough (perhaps a touch too much so, since hardly any challenge fazes her for long and several times she appears to do what are framed as impossible things for no clear reason). Nonetheless, she does her job somewhat testily but admirably as one thing then another needs her attention. I liked her as a character, and also liked one of the side characters, Tun, who she goes on a bit of an expedition with for about the middle 50% of the book. That expedition is the 4-star story, which I really liked. Tun and Aelis are very different people, but they mesh well and play off each other charmingly as they warm to and learn about each other. I'd have taken an entire book of the Aelis and Tun Show, but unfortunately, their arc was treated as less important than the much more slowly developing (and less interesting to me) stories about a rogue Warden's plots, Aelis' infatuation with a pretty mercenary woman, and some political maneuvering happening in the background.
My disinterest in these other plot arcs was mostly because some of the background and Aelis' strongly held opinions and decisions aren't really explained well. By way of example: the town asks for a Warden. Aelis is sent to the town in response, and they are laughably unprepared for her, to the point they lodge her in a tower without even a functioning door. This is played for laughs, but it's just the first of many times I went "why would this be like this?" in this book: why would the town have asked for a Warden when they didn't have a place prepared for her (or, as several characters seem to suggest, even need her?) Why wouldn't there have been a note sent back to them that their request had been approved, so get the Warden's legally-mandated house ready! Why doesn't the Archmage like Aelis and where did their enmity start? Who actually does Aelis report to? The Archmage? The Wardens? Are they one and the same? Why would a dungeon delving adventurer group have a huge ass arbalest and still haul it around when they turn into essentially the frontier mailman? Why would Aelis not have immediately ordered things like winter clothes? Why would she assume that it's fine to take a super competent and useful guide with her on one Warden quest but not another? Why, when she is not trained for winter wilderness adventures, would she decide that no, OBVIOUSLY this vague order she's received means that she needs to go on a near-suicidal trek, alone, through the winter wilderness, against the specific recommendations of her super competent guide? I mean...why not wait for spring? All of these questions just leave some of Aelis' actions oddly unexplained.
Also unexplained are the many pages devoted to flashbacks of Aelis' training, which feel overlong for how little they informed the main story. I get the sense that they're there to set up a future book that involves her teachers, but in THIS book, they seem kind of overdone.
Finally, the most jarring unexplained thing for me was the romantic subplot, which I just didn't buy. Aelis fell in lust at first sight with Maurenia when not knowing anything about her except she was pretty. Which...ok, that happens. It's eye-rollingly trite, but ok. But then the book doesn't weave any sort of character development for Maurenia into the rest of the story. Maurenia remains an enigma, to the point that when she kind of leans into the relationship at an odd time--when it's really obvious that Aelis has a lot going on and is kind of exhausted--that I actually wondered if Maurenia had some sort of under handed motive afoot to try to distract Aelis from her work. But no, she just had...odd timing? The narrative focus on that love plot is then derailed by another emotional tie with Tun (which takes up way more of the book than the interactions with Maurenia). It was a kind of mixed signal I was getting as a reader: I was being TOLD that Maurenia's relationship was important (for reasons not well developed), but I was being SHOWN (for reasons QUITE well developed) that her relationship with Tun was important. But yet Maurenia's relationship was the Important True Love and her relationship with Tun was a "friendship" of so little importance to Aelis that after she's done helping Tun, she doesn't have any contact with him for months. (Let's just say, if this were a dating sim, I know which person I would have romanced, and it would not have been the one Aelis picked!)
In the end, I was left feeling like the author wrote a very interesting novella...and then encased it in enough other stuff to make a book - I loved the novella, was much more "meh" on the rest of the book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore
kylieqrada's review
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I’m so glad I ended up liking this a lot! The first half was a little slow, and I didn’t start vibing with Aelis until a while into the book. But once we met Tun and started getting into Necromancy stuff, I was hooked. Will definitely be continuing in the series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Blood, and Classism
Minor: Animal death, Gore, and Sexism
agrandreflection's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Body horror, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
non3rs's review
adventurous
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book was amazing. I honestly felt like I was playing Skyrim again. Tun is adorable. Aelis is a queen. She takes zero shit. I loved the little side f/f romance and how it didn’t over power the plot. I’m ready for book two
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, Gore, Violence, and Blood
More...