Reviews with content warning for Death - City of Bones

Reviews tagging 'Death'

City of Bones by Martha Wells

8 reviews

dosxhime's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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ehmannky's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious slow-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

Another excellent and dense fantasy read from Wells that I thoroughly enjoyed. Set in a fantasy post-apocalyptic world (not ours), our inhuman protagonist Khat is roped into a conspiracy surrounding ancient relics and the city's top power players. And the idea that the novel plays with of the world's very future being endangered by rich people playing with forces of nature they cannot control is one that just hit a little close to home. Wells just has a great knack for writing really great characters--even her secondary and tertiary characters were interesting.

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erinbrenner's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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misterwisp's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

It's pretty good. The enjoyable aspects are the world and the characters. The biggest difficult aspect is the slow pacing in parts, and elaborate excessive attention to small details can make things drag a bit.

The world is centuries into the aftermath of some kind of magical eco-disaster that left behind a harsh desert. The cities are shaped by extremes of poverty and wealth. Acquisition, ownership, and trading of relics from the mage culture before the big disaster is the big shaping force in the society and culture. It feels interesting and unique. It's not just pseudo medieval Europe or anything like that. The characters are well written and felt worth investing in.

The plot is a bit slow. Things take a long time to happen. Scenes often have a high level of description including specific breakdown of lighting conditions, the exact details of patterns on the furniture, and the minutiae of the clothing characters are wearing, etc. After a certain point it felt unnecessary and repetitive.

Frustrations aside it was a good read and the pace picked up in the last quarter. Time spend was not regretted. The author has a creative imagination. There was payoff and the ending was satisfying.

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escapismforlife's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective 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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It was a long extra few weeks before I finished this standalone sci-fi and fantasy, but I finished and it was both super technical and somehow dramatic yet fun throughout. The audiobok definitely helped get me more invested with how this story is told. In particular to grasp the main characters voices and lifestyles in this dystopic city. They were chaotic but logical somehow for a setting that underestimates them for there positions. Which I automatically resonate with the complicated role they have to balance each are put in that's always nicely done in these genres and more so I ones with political infighting.

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adancewithbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous

3.0

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

City of Bones is a standalone fantasy that Martha Wells first published in 1995. In september the revised and updated version was released with Tor. Martha Wells has quite the list of books that she has written before Murderbot. And I did love her more recent Witch King. However this one didn't quite live up to what I have priorly read of her. Its not a bad book. But it was not memorable.

Khat is hired by warders (magic users) to find a relic in one of the arcane engines that the last ancients left behind. When this expedition goes wrong, he is pulled into a much bigger plot that might take everyone a step back into history.

When a fantasy has a rich history and ancients to be discovered about, that always excites me. And I do think that was one of the better things about this book. The pull, the mystery of that. However this book has quite a slow build and doesn't leave much room at the end for the pay off. Of the actual discovery of ancients. It was: here is one. Now its gone. That was absolutely not enough. I could have dealt with that had this been a series and if we would have had to chance to dive in deeper. But this is a standalone.

Slow builds in fantasy is not unusual. Things have to be set up. Unfortunately I did not care enough about the characters. Khat should have been interesting for who he was and his background, but it didn't move me. I cared even less about the warder. They just were not compelling to me. Not memorable.

Adding on to that, the plot had little surprises. It trudged on in the slow build up where my mind kept yelling; can't you see?

Having said that, I did find the history and the magic/science surrounding the relics and the ancient engines really interesting. It is not a bad book. But because of the above mentioned, just not very memorable.

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clarabooksit's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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pvbobrien's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-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

4.5

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