ailsaod's review
adventurous
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Reread. This book is an Arthurian legends retelling set in the legendary land of Lyonesse - the remains of which are now the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall. As retellings go this book is highly original: according to the legends Lyonesse is supposed to have sunk because of some unnamed terrible crime committed by the inhabitants and Llewellyn expands on this story greatly. The Lyonesse of this duology is a kingdom that has been usurped and those in power are corrupt and greedy. The land is sinking so walls must be built to keep out the sea but as of late Lyonesse has undergone somewhat of an industrial revolution and the sea walls are built using monsters from an alternate world known as the Wellworld at the price of flooding the land with poisonous well water.
The world building is very good and is definitely the best aspect of the book. Unfortunately the characters are a bit strange: they don't really talk like actual people, though not to an overly painful degree. This is likely mainly to do with the existence of 'the Manner' - a rigid code of etiquette and customs that everyone follows that can at times make characters sound very flowery and formal. I didn't mind the Manner really as it made the slightly weird dialogue make sense in universe and I haven't previously come across a book with such a system so it was interesting. Idris is 11/12 in this book but it is very difficult to believe most of the time as he is treated like and acts like an adult most of the time.
My only real complaint about this book is how Morgan was treated throughout the book. She is continually sidelined in favour of Idris and treated as if it's too high-risk to tell her what's going on (despite a later plot twist COMPLETELY invalidating this). On a few occasions Idris maneuvers situations to fall in Morgan's favour, knowing full well that if she knew he was doing it she wouldn't want him to and it drove me CRAZY.
Overall I quite liked this book and I remember liking book 2 even more so I would definitely recommend it but be aware that its a little strange.
The world building is very good and is definitely the best aspect of the book. Unfortunately the characters are a bit strange: they don't really talk like actual people, though not to an overly painful degree. This is likely mainly to do with the existence of 'the Manner' - a rigid code of etiquette and customs that everyone follows that can at times make characters sound very flowery and formal. I didn't mind the Manner really as it made the slightly weird dialogue make sense in universe and I haven't previously come across a book with such a system so it was interesting. Idris is 11/12 in this book but it is very difficult to believe most of the time as he is treated like and acts like an adult most of the time.
My only real complaint about this book is how Morgan was treated throughout the book. She is continually sidelined in favour of Idris and treated as if it's too high-risk to tell her what's going on (despite a later plot twist COMPLETELY invalidating this). On a few occasions Idris maneuvers situations to fall in Morgan's favour, knowing full well that if she knew he was doing it she wouldn't want him to and it drove me CRAZY.
Overall I quite liked this book and I remember liking book 2 even more so I would definitely recommend it but be aware that its a little strange.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty
Minor: Child death
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