A review by cupiscent
The Falcon Throne by Karen Miller
Did not finish book.
Setting aside at page 102, because I'm just not having any fun or feeling any burning need to know more of the story. There are a few ways in which this just isn't working at all for me.
One is the world, which I started out in the prologue thinking might be sort of Egyptian-ish possibly, but quickly and obviously settled into standard western-Euro, complete with Germanic-esque names, jousting, castles and ale and buxom wenches. Duchies, councils, the old superstitions denounced by the new severe religion... yawn.
Secondly, and relatedly, the language usage just wasn't working at all for me. There's a very staged and almost Shakespearean feel to it. (In one exchange, says character a: "Oh ho, so I'm a squire, am I? Come to bend my knee with querulous demand?" to which character b replies: "No, my lord. If there's knee-bending wanted it will be me in the mud, not you." I can just about see the actors delivering it on stage, doublet and hose and all. But it's not really working for me on the page.) There's some interesting slang and other usage, but even then it tends to be overused - the fifth time I've seen one slang term in two pages I'm bored with it already.
It's also just plain long, in ways it really didn't need to be. Characters wrangle over decisions and discussions for whole pages when it could have been made briefer and pithier, and scenes meander, full of colour and detail and character elements that seem of tertiary importance at best. Part of what I enjoy about fantasy is the richness and size of its stories, but there's a difference between an epic story and fantasy flab, and my feeling is that this tends to the latter.
Third, the characters and their stories were none of them interesting to me. Old, steady men and their young hotheaded heirs, selfish dukes and their wracked-by-honour detractors. Selfish, pompous, straightforward, boring men, in conflict with other men, over the fates and honours and whatnot of men. The few women in the first chapters were witches, bitches, ninnies or mentioned but not seen. I don't care about any of the people we've met, I don't care about what they're doing, and I don't care about the repercussions, because this is, or seems most strongly to be, another Game-of-Thrones struggles-of-men-in-the-mud fantasy.
For all of these reasons, I will not be slogging through the remaining 570-odd pages of this.
One is the world, which I started out in the prologue thinking might be sort of Egyptian-ish possibly, but quickly and obviously settled into standard western-Euro, complete with Germanic-esque names, jousting, castles and ale and buxom wenches. Duchies, councils, the old superstitions denounced by the new severe religion... yawn.
Secondly, and relatedly, the language usage just wasn't working at all for me. There's a very staged and almost Shakespearean feel to it. (In one exchange, says character a: "Oh ho, so I'm a squire, am I? Come to bend my knee with querulous demand?" to which character b replies: "No, my lord. If there's knee-bending wanted it will be me in the mud, not you." I can just about see the actors delivering it on stage, doublet and hose and all. But it's not really working for me on the page.) There's some interesting slang and other usage, but even then it tends to be overused - the fifth time I've seen one slang term in two pages I'm bored with it already.
It's also just plain long, in ways it really didn't need to be. Characters wrangle over decisions and discussions for whole pages when it could have been made briefer and pithier, and scenes meander, full of colour and detail and character elements that seem of tertiary importance at best. Part of what I enjoy about fantasy is the richness and size of its stories, but there's a difference between an epic story and fantasy flab, and my feeling is that this tends to the latter.
Third, the characters and their stories were none of them interesting to me. Old, steady men and their young hotheaded heirs, selfish dukes and their wracked-by-honour detractors. Selfish, pompous, straightforward, boring men, in conflict with other men, over the fates and honours and whatnot of men. The few women in the first chapters were witches, bitches, ninnies or mentioned but not seen. I don't care about any of the people we've met, I don't care about what they're doing, and I don't care about the repercussions, because this is, or seems most strongly to be, another Game-of-Thrones struggles-of-men-in-the-mud fantasy.
For all of these reasons, I will not be slogging through the remaining 570-odd pages of this.