hostral's review
3.0
Fans of Brent Weeks and assassins in general could do a lot worse than to pick this work up. I highlight Weeks in particular because he was also very young when he wrote his first book. We'll get to that later though.
Attrition is a recollection of a scholar/chronicler about the legendary Racath Thanjel and begins in vaguely Name of the Wind fashion. A biography of his fame as narrated by another.
Majiski are a near-extinct race, and Majiski assassins are a most dangerous kind of breed. They hide in the shadows of an all-powerful Dominion in the hope of one day covertly bringing it down.
Sounds great so far, doesn't it? So why only three stars?
It's not the occasional glaring typo, it's not the world-building or the prose, which are both excellent. It comes down to the characters and the dialogue.
While it's unknown whether it was intentional or not, Night has produced Joss Whedon style characters. The quirky humorous sort that quite frankly seem completely out of place in the world they inhabit. The dialogue repeatedly attempts to reinforce the endearing banter between the characters, and while it might work for a television series or a video game, it struggles here.
Therein lies the problem with the action sequences too. When I read Robert E. Howard I feel like I'm tearing the enemies apart with my own hands. When I read S.G. Night, I feel like I'm in some elaborate set piece from a Ubisoft title. This isn't a bad thing as such, as it's all competently written. It just felt out of place.
While fantasy is meant to take a reader out of the world around him, Night tries to have both the gritty world of his contemporaries and the light-hearted humour of superheroes as they take on the baddies. His attempt to have his cake and eat it is jarring and takes me out of the story and the stakes involved.
Now to address the elephant in the room: S.G. Night wrote this when he was seventeen, as has been repeatedly mentioned by almost every review of the work. Unfortunately for Night, age can excuse the flaws in this work, but it cannot erase them. When compared to the works of the relatively elder statesmen that populate the fantasy world, this doesn't quite hold up.
On the plus side, Night continues to write. His Inspector Vego mystery shows a maturity that parts of Attrition lacked, and you wouldn't bet against the man becoming something special as he continues to learn his craft.
Attrition is definitely worth a look, so long as it is viewed through eyes that acknowledge the prodigious youth that wrote it.
Attrition is a recollection of a scholar/chronicler about the legendary Racath Thanjel and begins in vaguely Name of the Wind fashion. A biography of his fame as narrated by another.
Majiski are a near-extinct race, and Majiski assassins are a most dangerous kind of breed. They hide in the shadows of an all-powerful Dominion in the hope of one day covertly bringing it down.
Sounds great so far, doesn't it? So why only three stars?
It's not the occasional glaring typo, it's not the world-building or the prose, which are both excellent. It comes down to the characters and the dialogue.
While it's unknown whether it was intentional or not, Night has produced Joss Whedon style characters. The quirky humorous sort that quite frankly seem completely out of place in the world they inhabit. The dialogue repeatedly attempts to reinforce the endearing banter between the characters, and while it might work for a television series or a video game, it struggles here.
Therein lies the problem with the action sequences too. When I read Robert E. Howard I feel like I'm tearing the enemies apart with my own hands. When I read S.G. Night, I feel like I'm in some elaborate set piece from a Ubisoft title. This isn't a bad thing as such, as it's all competently written. It just felt out of place.
While fantasy is meant to take a reader out of the world around him, Night tries to have both the gritty world of his contemporaries and the light-hearted humour of superheroes as they take on the baddies. His attempt to have his cake and eat it is jarring and takes me out of the story and the stakes involved.
Now to address the elephant in the room: S.G. Night wrote this when he was seventeen, as has been repeatedly mentioned by almost every review of the work. Unfortunately for Night, age can excuse the flaws in this work, but it cannot erase them. When compared to the works of the relatively elder statesmen that populate the fantasy world, this doesn't quite hold up.
On the plus side, Night continues to write. His Inspector Vego mystery shows a maturity that parts of Attrition lacked, and you wouldn't bet against the man becoming something special as he continues to learn his craft.
Attrition is definitely worth a look, so long as it is viewed through eyes that acknowledge the prodigious youth that wrote it.
edp95123's review
3.0
There's no doubt: this young man has a gift in story-telling. I'm not an avid Fantasy reader, but this book drew me in. It does need a good Editor however. There are way too many adverbs throughout this book, ad nauseam, causing the dialog to be disjointed. If this were corrected, this would be a 4 to 5 star rating, hands down. I believe this author has the potential to be a renowned author one day.
diesmali's review
3.0
Pretty darn impressive effort for a teenager. While the book isn't without it faults I have to say I enjoyed most of the story. There was slightly too much naivete, but in the end I can see well past it.
The world building is solid, the characters range from traditional (I wouldn't say clichéd) to new and interesting. No real surprises in the plot, and perhaps too little development of the main hero. He had a slight flaw to overcome, but it wasn't enough to make it really interesting. But I'm interested to see where this goes, and so I will gladly pick up the next book.
The world building is solid, the characters range from traditional (I wouldn't say clichéd) to new and interesting. No real surprises in the plot, and perhaps too little development of the main hero. He had a slight flaw to overcome, but it wasn't enough to make it really interesting. But I'm interested to see where this goes, and so I will gladly pick up the next book.
howdy's review
4.0
I don't know where to start with this book, written at such a young age i didn't exactly know what i would be getting myself into.
I'll start with the characters, while their personality and characteristics weren't as deep as any other book you would read, i felt that this was almost appropriate; the book being a "diary" or "story" if you will. We did not need to understand the characters past to understand why the character did and felt the way they did. This in my opinion is exceptional, the fact however that the characters did generally feel like a body of 'skills' with characteristics stamped upon them brought the book down to 4 stars, the characters were consistent though and i never dis-believed in anything the characters chose to do.
The detail. Wow. The way the book was written, like every sentence was crafted for us readers to explore every genius surface and corner of passion put into the book. I can't describe how this changed the book for me, i could feel the dedication and effort that was in the book and i believe that this could only come from an author starting at such a young age, that the dedication and devotion to his work was full of the passion, un-corrupted by age. I can't describe how the detail made me feel, all i can say is that out of the many many books i've read, this books attention to detail and passion brought me in the most.
Finally, the story, while cliche (demon's, magic etc) had unique twists that really brought the fantasy cliche back to life, can't say much for the story as the book felt like an introduction into this new world but from what we have now i'm amazed.
job well fucking done S.G. Night.
I'll start with the characters, while their personality and characteristics weren't as deep as any other book you would read, i felt that this was almost appropriate; the book being a "diary" or "story" if you will. We did not need to understand the characters past to understand why the character did and felt the way they did. This in my opinion is exceptional, the fact however that the characters did generally feel like a body of 'skills' with characteristics stamped upon them brought the book down to 4 stars, the characters were consistent though and i never dis-believed in anything the characters chose to do.
The detail. Wow. The way the book was written, like every sentence was crafted for us readers to explore every genius surface and corner of passion put into the book. I can't describe how this changed the book for me, i could feel the dedication and effort that was in the book and i believe that this could only come from an author starting at such a young age, that the dedication and devotion to his work was full of the passion, un-corrupted by age. I can't describe how the detail made me feel, all i can say is that out of the many many books i've read, this books attention to detail and passion brought me in the most.
Finally, the story, while cliche (demon's, magic etc) had unique twists that really brought the fantasy cliche back to life, can't say much for the story as the book felt like an introduction into this new world but from what we have now i'm amazed.
job well fucking done S.G. Night.
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