gmvader's review against another edition
1.0
I wish I could tell the difference between when I have changed too much to appreciate an author’s writing and when the author has just diminished too much to be read any more.
I recall really enjoying the first four books of this series and found them to be exciting and phenomenal works of fantasy with brilliant consequences to the magic system that seemed to be missing in other works.
Then I read the precursor to this book and found it almost unbearably dull and poorly written.
Being a glutton for punishment — and slightly obsessive about finishing series once begun — I read this book.
I’m not sure where Farland is going with this. I get the idea from some of the writing advice he gives that he fancies himself a great writer of characters. Unfortunately this book is full of a series of character tropes with the thinnest of character traits.
It all starts when Fallion casts a super-powerful magic spell that makes his world collide with another one. The entire face of the world is changed as the two places merge and many people cease to exist, others join together with people from the other world and the landscape is completely shifted around to make some kind of approximation of the two worlds.
Fallion thinks he is completely in the right for doing this because, after all it is in the plot. Even though thousands, or maybe millions die because of it and it also brings super powerful giants that want to conquer everything as well as some kind of demons and monsters that kill people left and right.
Fallion is apparently incapable of caring about people.
What follows is a series of improbable adventures as we are told how tiny and delicate normal people are compared to the giants from the other world that are now everywhere followed by heroic battles where the normal sized people fight off the giants, demons and monsters and win the day because they are the heroes.
On the one hand I applaud Farland for being willing to destroy his world and make it into something else. That’s not always an easy thing to do. In fact, I believe that the story of the Lord of the Rings is the story of the breaking of Middle Earth. It is the story of the passing of magic from the world. I have to nod my head to David Farland for being one of the few authors that I’ve read who has figured that out and used that aspect in their fantasy. Most authors miss Tolkien completely and copy what they think they saw that they loved.
Farland isn’t copying anything, really, he’s just not a very good writer. Every scene feels awkward and underdeveloped. The descriptions are seldom rich enough for the scene to be fully imagined, the characters are seldom realized enough to have believable or understandable motivations, the people, magic, monsters, giants, worlds, demons, etc. have powers and ideas and abilities that vary with the convenience of the plot and the story. Monsters that are talked about by powerful mages as being scary beyond belief turn out to be susceptible to bright lights… sometimes.
The whole makes for a bit of a mess that feels like Farland is regressing in his skill rather than the opposite. I hesitate to go back and read the earlier ones that I loved so much. Perhaps they are not as good as I remembered. Perhaps I have outgrown this over-wrought poorly written story.
The question then remains. Will I finish the series? I don’t know. This was bad enough that I might not. Will the author finish the series? That remains to be seen as well.
I recall really enjoying the first four books of this series and found them to be exciting and phenomenal works of fantasy with brilliant consequences to the magic system that seemed to be missing in other works.
Then I read the precursor to this book and found it almost unbearably dull and poorly written.
Being a glutton for punishment — and slightly obsessive about finishing series once begun — I read this book.
I’m not sure where Farland is going with this. I get the idea from some of the writing advice he gives that he fancies himself a great writer of characters. Unfortunately this book is full of a series of character tropes with the thinnest of character traits.
It all starts when Fallion casts a super-powerful magic spell that makes his world collide with another one. The entire face of the world is changed as the two places merge and many people cease to exist, others join together with people from the other world and the landscape is completely shifted around to make some kind of approximation of the two worlds.
Fallion thinks he is completely in the right for doing this because, after all it is in the plot. Even though thousands, or maybe millions die because of it and it also brings super powerful giants that want to conquer everything as well as some kind of demons and monsters that kill people left and right.
Fallion is apparently incapable of caring about people.
What follows is a series of improbable adventures as we are told how tiny and delicate normal people are compared to the giants from the other world that are now everywhere followed by heroic battles where the normal sized people fight off the giants, demons and monsters and win the day because they are the heroes.
On the one hand I applaud Farland for being willing to destroy his world and make it into something else. That’s not always an easy thing to do. In fact, I believe that the story of the Lord of the Rings is the story of the breaking of Middle Earth. It is the story of the passing of magic from the world. I have to nod my head to David Farland for being one of the few authors that I’ve read who has figured that out and used that aspect in their fantasy. Most authors miss Tolkien completely and copy what they think they saw that they loved.
Farland isn’t copying anything, really, he’s just not a very good writer. Every scene feels awkward and underdeveloped. The descriptions are seldom rich enough for the scene to be fully imagined, the characters are seldom realized enough to have believable or understandable motivations, the people, magic, monsters, giants, worlds, demons, etc. have powers and ideas and abilities that vary with the convenience of the plot and the story. Monsters that are talked about by powerful mages as being scary beyond belief turn out to be susceptible to bright lights… sometimes.
The whole makes for a bit of a mess that feels like Farland is regressing in his skill rather than the opposite. I hesitate to go back and read the earlier ones that I loved so much. Perhaps they are not as good as I remembered. Perhaps I have outgrown this over-wrought poorly written story.
The question then remains. Will I finish the series? I don’t know. This was bad enough that I might not. Will the author finish the series? That remains to be seen as well.
trsclee's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
storyphoria's review against another edition
3.0
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While it's interesting to see our heroes starting to realize who they are within the larger "universe", this book starts a full downward spiral into... well... despair and chaos in which Farland just decides to go all in on the mayhem. Even when our heroes succeed it feels like they are defeated, and the binding of these two worlds feels like the end of days are upon them.
Farland's writing is still enjoyable, however the story/plotlines are getting a bit heavy with the plot armor and I found myself having trouble really getting invested into the characters. Not bad, just not as good as the first 4 in this series and that's a sentiment that only grows through the rest of this series for me.
https://solo.to/storyphoria
While it's interesting to see our heroes starting to realize who they are within the larger "universe", this book starts a full downward spiral into... well... despair and chaos in which Farland just decides to go all in on the mayhem. Even when our heroes succeed it feels like they are defeated, and the binding of these two worlds feels like the end of days are upon them.
Farland's writing is still enjoyable, however the story/plotlines are getting a bit heavy with the plot armor and I found myself having trouble really getting invested into the characters. Not bad, just not as good as the first 4 in this series and that's a sentiment that only grows through the rest of this series for me.
kagedbooks's review against another edition
4.0
It's a whole new world. Literally. As the title suggest in worldbinder. Fallion is able to bind some of the shadow worlds together. This book shows how well Farland is able to build up a world. It goes beyond the Runelords magic system and adds a whole new magic system and a whole new race (sort of) of enemies. He is able to take the world he created in his earlier books and with mostly new characters allow us to see how generations grow. I see that some of the reviews put him down for having so many new characters, but personally I like the evolution of the world, it is similar to the progression shown in David Gemmell’s “ Dernai Saga” in that sense. While it does have some inconsistencies such as Borenson’s oldest child not being one of the children of the oak (he had no children before Averen fixed the seals in the earth.) and the strengi-saats having different meanings in this book, Overall it is still a good book and you should probably read it.
oliverjevensen's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
murcatto's review against another edition
2.0
After the series started to go downhill in book 5 (loved the first 4 books!) it sadly has not gotten any better, maybe even worse in book 6. I find little report with the main characters and the story has become increasingly unrealistic by trying to find bigger and bigger adversaries in each book.
I so hope book 7 will see a return to form for this likeable author.
I so hope book 7 will see a return to form for this likeable author.
ginn's review
3.0
This one took a lot of effort to get into. The first half is quite slow because many new things have to be introduced, which is fine but not quite what one is expecting in the sixth book of a series. It also seemed that the author didn't put as much effort into the first half as compared to the other books. I enjoyed some of the concepts, such as worldbinding itself, and wings as a thing you can wear, but the most compelling characters I found were not Fallion or Rhianna, as you would expect, but Daylan, Alun, and Areth (find an anagram for that name. Ha!).
It had a cliff-hanger ending so to resolve the story, you've got to read the next one. And although the characters aren't too well-developed in this set of books, the storyline is interesting enough to compensate.
It had a cliff-hanger ending so to resolve the story, you've got to read the next one. And although the characters aren't too well-developed in this set of books, the storyline is interesting enough to compensate.
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