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A review by everybody
Blood Tally by Brian McClellan
3.0
My main complaint is the plot-convenience in action scenes. Suddenly someone has a knife to Alek's throat even tho he stood 2 meters away in the previous sentence. Then we go through the whole "woow, no sudden movements", blah blah, but in the following paragraph, he is able to pull out his gun and fire it multiple times before anyone else can even react. (This is not precisely what happens anywhere but it illustrates the gist of the problem.) This kind of arbitrary space-time continuum warping is used for and against the MC depending on what the author wants to accomplish. It cheapens many of the scenes that are supposed to be tense. It's just not possible to judge how dangerous a situation really is. For me, the fighting scenes ended up being mainly just waiting for the author to tell me the outcome after a long string of pointless theatrics.
I would have liked for the story to have started much sooner in the MC's life. I would've loved to see how Alek became who he is today and how he acquired his magical tattoos in the process. Of course, there always is the option of a prequel but that's never really the same if you already know who he will become.
It's the classic problem of not telling the most interesting part of a story. If this other thing the author hints at is more interesting than the current plot why is the book not about that thing?
I really enjoyed the development of the relationship with the love interest. It felt very natural and believable and I loved her. (Maybe almost as much as Alek did, god, what a woman.)
The plot was pretty entertaining with many twists and turns but the foundation of it all was rather shaky.
I would have liked for the story to have started much sooner in the MC's life. I would've loved to see how Alek became who he is today and how he acquired his magical tattoos in the process. Of course, there always is the option of a prequel but that's never really the same if you already know who he will become.
It's the classic problem of not telling the most interesting part of a story. If this other thing the author hints at is more interesting than the current plot why is the book not about that thing?
I really enjoyed the development of the relationship with the love interest. It felt very natural and believable and I loved her. (Maybe almost as much as Alek did, god, what a woman.)
The plot was pretty entertaining with many twists and turns but the foundation of it all was rather shaky.