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literatelizard's review against another edition
4.0
I don't think I've ever had so much trouble deciding on a ratting for a book before.
I really enjoyed reading it, I thought the plot, the world-building, the characters were all fascinating. If anything, I think it hooked me even more than Aching God did when that first came out.
But there was something about the pacing of the plot that just didn't work for me. Even though I was enjoying reading it, it felt like there were large swaths where nothing was happening, followed by moving forward too quickly.
And then I also found some of the scenes with Agnes to be a little unsettling/off-putting. It felt like she kept being unnecessarily objectified, as seen with the instance of the near-rape and the multiple instances of men grabbing her tits. Didn't seem necessary to me.
I really enjoyed reading it, I thought the plot, the world-building, the characters were all fascinating. If anything, I think it hooked me even more than Aching God did when that first came out.
But there was something about the pacing of the plot that just didn't work for me. Even though I was enjoying reading it, it felt like there were large swaths where nothing was happening, followed by moving forward too quickly.
And then I also found some of the scenes with Agnes to be a little unsettling/off-putting. It felt like she kept being unnecessarily objectified, as seen with the instance of the near-rape and the multiple instances of men grabbing her tits. Didn't seem necessary to me.
charlotekerstenauthor's review against another edition
So What’s It About?
A year has passed since Auric Manteo descended into the haunted depths of a Djao ruin to return a lethal artifact, only to face down a bloodthirsty, imprisoned god. Now his daughter Agnes comes to bring him back to the capital with promises of hidden secrets finally revealed.
But the city decays, poisonous disorder is rife, and whispered prophecy foretells of cataclysm and doom. Summoned by their no-longer human queen, Auric and Agnes are commanded to carry out an impossible task, one that can be accomplished only with the mysterious blade Szaa’da’shaela, gifted to Auric on a lunatic's whim.
Can Auric and his daughter survive a journey fraught with blood, menace, and madness? And can they pay the price demanded by a being every bit as evil as the Aching God?
What I Thought
While I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first book in the series, I’m still glad to have continued on. What really stood out was my lack of emotional investment I had in the characters and their fates due to the mediocre characterization and relationship development. Agnes and Auric are the chief examples of this. Shel does work to show their fraught father-daughter relationship, and there is technically substance there - Agnes resents Auric for undermining her career and abandoning her after the deaths of her mother and brother. At the same time, Auric feels guilty for neglecting her and wants to protect her, which only fuels her resentment more. Unfortunately, I felt absolutely no emotional connection or attachment to the relationship despite the author's attempts to flesh it out. This really, really stood out to me in the scene where Auric. I was watching The Last of Us and playing The Witcher 3 around the time that I read this book, so the Auric/Agnes relationship’s weakness and flatness stood out even more.
I found similarly unmoving, but as a whole, I think the new group of adventurers is more interesting than the group in the prior book. Chalca is probably my favorite of them, and I appreciate some of the very brief discussions of masculinity and homophobia that he brings up by not caring at all about the discomfort of his more “rigidly masculine” party members. One of Shel’s most interesting little touches of characterization is Auric grumpily thinking to himself that he doesn’t have a problem with people “like that” as long as they don’t flaunt it…such a Dad Moment.
There are moments like this trying to address identity and bias throughout, and some of them work better than others. The most iffy example is probably the introduction of racism along with the introduction of some new characters of color. For instance, there is a N-word equivalent for Black people in this world, and people from the Eastern continent are described as being beautiful with eyes like almonds or “having the stink of the East” about them depending on who is talking. I think that cutting the relatively small number of lines/descriptions of this nature could have totally eliminated one of the book’s elements that felt the most awkward and least tasteful to me.
At one point, some cultists release a drug into the city and it makes people become incredibly violent. Agnes gets sexually assaulted and almost raped by two men on this drug and later gets groped while they’re traveling by ship. The book doesn’t really dwell on her reactions to these events in depth. While she has a couple of strong lines about how perpetrators make excuses for themselves and how the drug only brings out what is actually already inside of people already, the overall use of sexual violence just doesn’t sit quite right with me because it mostly feels like it is there to be gross and raise plot stakes. I don’t know that I would call it especially offensive but more simply par for the course for dark fantasy as a whole.
I really liked how the first book explored Auric’s PTSD, and this is a much less prominent aspect of Sin Eater because of how Auric is being soothed and placated by his magic talking sword. It is clear that his dependence on the sword for guidance and comfort/numbing is unhealthy, and I don’t trust the sword at all! As before, I most enjoyed everything involving the gods themselves and the dungeon-crawling adventures. Shel is able to evoke a really marvelously creepy and dire atmosphere during these parts of his books. I would have enjoyed this one more if he had really doubled down on these elements or strengthened the characters and relationships so that they were actually impactful; as it stands now, the result lies somewhere awkwardly in the middle. I will definitely be finishing the last book because I still really want to know what happens next, but I’ll do so with measured expectations.
A year has passed since Auric Manteo descended into the haunted depths of a Djao ruin to return a lethal artifact, only to face down a bloodthirsty, imprisoned god. Now his daughter Agnes comes to bring him back to the capital with promises of hidden secrets finally revealed.
But the city decays, poisonous disorder is rife, and whispered prophecy foretells of cataclysm and doom. Summoned by their no-longer human queen, Auric and Agnes are commanded to carry out an impossible task, one that can be accomplished only with the mysterious blade Szaa’da’shaela, gifted to Auric on a lunatic's whim.
Can Auric and his daughter survive a journey fraught with blood, menace, and madness? And can they pay the price demanded by a being every bit as evil as the Aching God?
What I Thought
While I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first book in the series, I’m still glad to have continued on. What really stood out was my lack of emotional investment I had in the characters and their fates due to the mediocre characterization and relationship development. Agnes and Auric are the chief examples of this. Shel does work to show their fraught father-daughter relationship, and there is technically substance there - Agnes resents Auric for undermining her career and abandoning her after the deaths of her mother and brother. At the same time, Auric feels guilty for neglecting her and wants to protect her, which only fuels her resentment more. Unfortunately, I felt absolutely no emotional connection or attachment to the relationship despite the author's attempts to flesh it out. This really, really stood out to me in the scene where Auric
Spoiler
sacrifices himself to save Agnes’ life - it is clearly supposed to be a massive tragic moment, but it just didn’t land in a resonant way for me at allI found
Spoiler
Kennah’s deathThere are moments like this trying to address identity and bias throughout, and some of them work better than others. The most iffy example is probably the introduction of racism along with the introduction of some new characters of color. For instance, there is a N-word equivalent for Black people in this world, and people from the Eastern continent are described as being beautiful with eyes like almonds or “having the stink of the East” about them depending on who is talking. I think that cutting the relatively small number of lines/descriptions of this nature could have totally eliminated one of the book’s elements that felt the most awkward and least tasteful to me.
At one point, some cultists release a drug into the city and it makes people become incredibly violent. Agnes gets sexually assaulted and almost raped by two men on this drug and later gets groped while they’re traveling by ship. The book doesn’t really dwell on her reactions to these events in depth. While she has a couple of strong lines about how perpetrators make excuses for themselves and how the drug only brings out what is actually already inside of people already, the overall use of sexual violence just doesn’t sit quite right with me because it mostly feels like it is there to be gross and raise plot stakes. I don’t know that I would call it especially offensive but more simply par for the course for dark fantasy as a whole.
I really liked how the first book explored Auric’s PTSD, and this is a much less prominent aspect of Sin Eater because of how Auric is being soothed and placated by his magic talking sword. It is clear that his dependence on the sword for guidance and comfort/numbing is unhealthy, and I don’t trust the sword at all! As before, I most enjoyed everything involving the gods themselves and the dungeon-crawling adventures. Shel is able to evoke a really marvelously creepy and dire atmosphere during these parts of his books. I would have enjoyed this one more if he had really doubled down on these elements or strengthened the characters and relationships so that they were actually impactful; as it stands now, the result lies somewhere awkwardly in the middle. I will definitely be finishing the last book because I still really want to know what happens next, but I’ll do so with measured expectations.
tripleblacktri's review against another edition
4.0
A journey boring in parts but likely worth getting through
3.5 for pacing. Most of this book, like the first, was about the adventure to get to the resolution. However, I found the trials inconsequential and not very gripping. The companions partook little and didn't seem to matter much either.
The ending was fascinating though.
3.5 for pacing. Most of this book, like the first, was about the adventure to get to the resolution. However, I found the trials inconsequential and not very gripping. The companions partook little and didn't seem to matter much either.
The ending was fascinating though.
perch15's review against another edition
4.0
Sin Eater doubles down on everything wonderful about The Aching God, Shel's 2018 debut. Just different enough from "classic" fantasy to stand out, but familiar enough to go down like a sort of literary comfort food. It is a book very rooted in 2019 sensibilities but not beholden to them in the least. Grim and dark, but never "grimdark," funny, but never a "joke" and touching without being cloying. This is modern fantasy done right, and on the author's own terms. I can't wait for the next entry in the series.
jonholdship's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Nobody who has read this book would be surprised to find out Mike Shel spends his time writing Pathfinder adventures when he isn't writing novels.
The setting is intriguing and has scope for some serious horror-fantasy but the book is spoiled by an extremely formulaic plot. Announce a quest that needs to be done, gather a party of D&D archetypes, go to the place where the bad thing is, complete a dungeon, have a final encounter.
It's the exact same plot as the first book except now it feels even less novel because we've done this already in this very series.
The setting is intriguing and has scope for some serious horror-fantasy but the book is spoiled by an extremely formulaic plot. Announce a quest that needs to be done, gather a party of D&D archetypes, go to the place where the bad thing is, complete a dungeon, have a final encounter.
It's the exact same plot as the first book except now it feels even less novel because we've done this already in this very series.
thatwellkid's review
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
sylum's review
adventurous
dark
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? Yes
4.0
namulith's review against another edition
5.0
Oh yes. Amazing continuation of the trilogy. I am so glad I happened upon these books, because I am enjoying them so much. Again, my only complaint is that the trilogy is not yet finished.
In this book Auric shares the stage with his daughter Agnes. It is mostly about them, their journey and how it affects them. There is a lot of development and pain, both physical and of the mind. Nobody in this broken, battered world is whole and unharmed. And yet they do great things, very hard things to do. We get to learn more about the world, their history and the Djao. Not quite pleasant, but interesting nonetheless. I can't wait for the final book!
In this book Auric shares the stage with his daughter Agnes. It is mostly about them, their journey and how it affects them. There is a lot of development and pain, both physical and of the mind. Nobody in this broken, battered world is whole and unharmed. And yet they do great things, very hard things to do. We get to learn more about the world, their history and the Djao. Not quite pleasant, but interesting nonetheless. I can't wait for the final book!
adherrling's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
A little weaker than the previous installment. An afterword by the author mentions that this series was originally a pathfinder module; this makes a lot of sense in hindsight, as the character archetypes and set pieces are very familiar to that medium of storytelling. The author also mentions his work as a clinical psychotherapist and his desire to explore a character with anxiety and PTSD, which I appreciate, but I don't know that it does much to the story here. Not sure if I'll continue to the third one
tallblondehandsome's review
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0