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A review by lanko
The Siege of Abythos by Phil Tucker
3.0
Some very good ideas, events and plotlines but mixed with rushed, clumsy or poor execution. I was thrilled by some parts and very disappointed in others.
Considering the release dates of the books (May, July and November of the same year) I wonder if the author took to heart the advice that self-published authors must release and keep releasing fast, some even saying you need 3 or even more books per year.
This might work for some of the other genres and perhaps styles (most short books), but releasing massive tomes every 3-4 months for Fantasy is a tough enterprise - one I even doubt can really be done to great effect.
The genre that has to establish totally new and different world(s) (a problem most of the other genres don't have), magical/alien races, magic, invented customs, imagine how all this effects the lives of various, often dozens of characters, and so much more. Even the one-book-a-year model of traditional publishing have problems with some books looking too rushed and underdeveloped despite having great potential or ideas.
I had issues in the past books with the lack of "show don't tell" of the writing, specially how almost everything a character feels and thinks is narrated and some important parts rushed or skipped entirely.
But here this couldn't be more plain and distracting for the sheer amount of times this happens (I'll talk about some of them later).
It felt like the writer simply wrote using ideas from bullet points and then simply putting them to paper in a bare bones way, not caring if narration could've been improved or changed to dialogue, thoughts or action.
It looked like the first quarter/third of the book (and the final battle and cliffhanger) were really given more thought or editing or rewriting, and it had quite a noticeable different feel throughout the rest of the book.
Even then, the book still could've been absolutely fantastic if it wasn't for two other fatal flaws: the amount of Deus Ex in the magic and despite that this is the third book, it's a setup book. I'll talk about the magic when I talk about the characters.
But the setup stage of the book is what really made it lose a lot of points with me. Being the third, this is where tension and conflict should be at their highest (it kinda of does at the very beginning and at the end), yet every character gets separated and form or join groups in which then presents us with tons of one dimensional and unimportant secondary characters and other secondary unimportant plotlines.
The siege itself only happens around 90%+ of a 700+ pages book. And sadly, there wasn't buildup for it because people were doing other unimportant things. Or if they were important, they were so rushed or even totally skipped that was hard to get anything from them.
Let's go to the characters:
Audsley: I think he saved the book for me. He explores Aletheia, have some amusing moments with its culture and I really kinda of liked him with Iarenna (she had the potential to be a very good and interesting secondary character but got sidelined too quickly. I hope she comes back more). If anyone else was exploring Aletheia this probably would've been disastrous, but Audsley was the perfect choice. Not only were his chapters funny but also relevant.
However, the author rushed writing allowed some "what the hell?" moments even in his POV, more precisely at chapter 27:
The maids leave shortly after and then Audsley reveals to Iskra and Iarenna he's possessed by demons, a fact that doesn't cause any kind of reaction from both women. Even if Iskra intends to use anything at her disposal, it was kinda of unbelievable she never gives the issue more thought. And Iarenna? She's raised in Aletheia, the holy city of Ascendancy. How she doesn't feel anything about Audsley being possessed by demons? Or her sister allying herself with Agerastos? Does she know her sister intends to invade Aletheia (I think Iskra tells this at some point in front of her as well later)? Or is not even troubled she had been speaking and was pretty much seduced from a demonic possessed guy?
Adding insult to the injury, later she's arrested and she tells the Virtues everything because they showed her the White Gate and then she feared for her eternal soul...
At the end, Audsley suddenly changes to a guy that apparently doesn't care about the means anymore or deaths caused. Earlier there was a chapter the demon said "the grief of killing grows lighter with time", but Audsley change was so sudden and abrupt that it felt extremely clumsy
Iskra: Hers was another good POV. The early parts were her best, setting up a heartbreaking conflict with Tiron and a really big change when she's to become Empress, with more challenges and greater scope of events. She also does some questionable things (but in a good way).
But she's also victim of the rushed writing, specially the Mertyn plotline and in the Empire.
So when Roddick dies in quite a similar way (throat slashing) I was wondering why she didn't at least try to get a Vhastok to heal him. Even if impossible, I found it weird she didn't even try in desperation to see if they could do something for the boy. Though Wyland was a nice subversion of the honored knight.
Mertyn's death was also a little clumsy in execution. Quite simply, we never saw enough of him to loathe the guy. This is a problem when the villain barely appears in the story for almost two books, doesn't have a POV and we don't have a POV hanging around him to see him better either.
So the conclusion of this arc isn't that thrilling (except maybe for the massacre that followed). The same thing for Roddick (who apparently was Rodrick in the second book), we feel for Iskra but they being absent so much makes it so that the events aren't explored in full potential.
And lastly, when the Emperor dies, Iskra has to take control again. There are at least three big factions (military, religious and "senate"). This could be a long plotline, but instead it's solved in about a chapter or two.
I'm not kidding. The magic users simply enter her room, Iskra says she has a sign combined to shoot them if they came through the portal and those magic users didn't even care to test it to see if it was true. They simply kneel. Then there are the military and others.
But in the next chapter everything was smoothed out and solved and Iskra has control of everything. Extremely convenient, specially considering nobody even cared to question how the Emperor died a few days after marrying Iskra or that she's a Kyferin. No obstacles whatsoever.
Her biggest challenge was simply solved too easily and quickly (offscreen, no less). She was supposed to be a clever and strong woman, but sadly we didn't see those attributes in action on a really big challenge.
Tharok: Tharok was my favorite character in the first two books. Here he's still a good character and his plans, both with and without the circlet, are pretty good. Kyrra was a great new character (possibly the only relevant new secondary character in the whole book) and pretty terrifying. His ambitions clash pretty often with his ideals and morality.
And different from Kethe and Asho, his magic comes from sources that actually are threats to him or that severely hampers him when not used (the circlet).
And also he's a victim of some rushed things, though in less degree than the others.
Guess what, a few chapters later, totally offscreen, said changes were quickly and effortlessly implemented and a week or two later everything said to be almost impossible is working perfectly.
I know he now has the circlet and is Medusa kissed but how easily he got control of trolls and later wyverns was a little too easy considering he learned the ability a few weeks or 2-4 months ago at best..
Asho: His was being a very good plotline now that he didn't depend on magical brute force anymore. Until, of course, he did and in an extremely Deus Ex way.
As it was, that alone would've been a massive shift from the tone and alone would make the story fantastic from the sheer surprise and the way of how it happened.
Sadly, despite saying numerous times how he couldn't use magic there... he proceeds and uses it anyway. And not in a frugal way, but pretty much healing himself from a mortal wound, from death itself. Then, without even him realizing how and why, he also absorbs a demon and heals even more (while also becoming super powerful).
The sheer convenience on how he's suddenly able to use magic after stating for various chapters that he couldn't simply had me eye rolling at it all. It was unbelievable and killed his entire plotline in the book.
Kethe: Another character whose plotline became much better without the magic... until of course, it became the focus of it.
If Asho had an absurd moment of Deus Ex, Kethe is the embodiment of "special snowflake". It was quite clear since book 1 what would happen to her, that all the deadly challenges would of course be easily surpassed and she would become really powerful. But the execution is so clumsy it's even more eye-rolling than Asho's Deus Ex.
Nobody else can withstand a blow (or two) from a virtue, only Kethe.
In the final battle, she somehow passes her white fire to other people's blades, and for unexplainable reasons, the other Virtues don't, only Kethe.
When someone told that Theletos would be able to defeat all other six Virtues by himself, I was pretty sure Kethe would end up fighting and defeating him by herself too.
There was a curious moment when training her cohort the narrative tries to put some realism with combat tactics and positioning and does so with Kethe, a teen girl, as general of the most elite force of the Empire.
Let's remember that from her tournament fight to the demon's battle in book 2 was a thing of 2-3 weeks. From her Consecration to Tharok's invasion another 2-4 weeks.
So in the span of only 2-3 months, the moment Kethe first fights with someone for real (after a 2 days a week secret training with a blacksmith), she bests everyone in combat who was there for far more time than she (some being real and veteran soldiers and apparently drilling under the Virtue's or their commanders), mostly because she is the only one to hear the White Gate and becomes a Virtue.
Her snowflakeness was just too much. It wouldn't even matter if the magic was cemented in a rigid scientific system (same thing for Asho regarding the magic).
And another curious aspect is when she tries to "motivate" one of her soldiers by provoking him about his wife and children.
Considering she was a pampered and isolated young lady at her castle, and only one or two battles under her belt (one only with Asho), it was quite surprising to see her language in that scene, specially considering she's a virgin who never had a boyfriend but at the same time was very sure of herself when speaking of the man's wife with as much vulgarity as possible. The worst thing is how said character actually thanks Kethe later, that's how special she is.
When Theletos later starts bumping into Kethe I was pretty much expecting a love triangle to develop around Kethe-Asho-Theletos (the author apparently was previously a PNR writer), but thank God that, so far, didn't happen..
Tiron: Tiron was the POV I enjoyed the least here. It has more to do with him passing most of his story in some random corner of the world fighting and helping random and unimportant lordlings and their feuds. And they weren't interesting either. I seriously kept asking myself what was the point of this new plotline and these new unimportant secondary characters introduced.
Well, all POVs had their bunch of new secondary, unimportant and without much personality characters, but ser Tiron got the least impressive of them all.
Overall, the final battle was really good and it does end with quite a change in expectations and a really good last chapter.
I just checked the release date of the 4th book, just in case. It's more than 5 months from the third, so I hope a lot of the writing problems in here don't appear (or don't overwhelm) the next book.
But I also came across that while the 4th book was released, the author was also writing the second book of his new saga.
Here's hoping for the best, but not really expecting it...
Considering the release dates of the books (May, July and November of the same year) I wonder if the author took to heart the advice that self-published authors must release and keep releasing fast, some even saying you need 3 or even more books per year.
This might work for some of the other genres and perhaps styles (most short books), but releasing massive tomes every 3-4 months for Fantasy is a tough enterprise - one I even doubt can really be done to great effect.
The genre that has to establish totally new and different world(s) (a problem most of the other genres don't have), magical/alien races, magic, invented customs, imagine how all this effects the lives of various, often dozens of characters, and so much more. Even the one-book-a-year model of traditional publishing have problems with some books looking too rushed and underdeveloped despite having great potential or ideas.
I had issues in the past books with the lack of "show don't tell" of the writing, specially how almost everything a character feels and thinks is narrated and some important parts rushed or skipped entirely.
But here this couldn't be more plain and distracting for the sheer amount of times this happens (I'll talk about some of them later).
It felt like the writer simply wrote using ideas from bullet points and then simply putting them to paper in a bare bones way, not caring if narration could've been improved or changed to dialogue, thoughts or action.
It looked like the first quarter/third of the book (and the final battle and cliffhanger) were really given more thought or editing or rewriting, and it had quite a noticeable different feel throughout the rest of the book.
Even then, the book still could've been absolutely fantastic if it wasn't for two other fatal flaws: the amount of Deus Ex in the magic and despite that this is the third book, it's a setup book. I'll talk about the magic when I talk about the characters.
But the setup stage of the book is what really made it lose a lot of points with me. Being the third, this is where tension and conflict should be at their highest (it kinda of does at the very beginning and at the end), yet every character gets separated and form or join groups in which then presents us with tons of one dimensional and unimportant secondary characters and other secondary unimportant plotlines.
The siege itself only happens around 90%+ of a 700+ pages book. And sadly, there wasn't buildup for it because people were doing other unimportant things. Or if they were important, they were so rushed or even totally skipped that was hard to get anything from them.
Let's go to the characters:
Audsley: I think he saved the book for me. He explores Aletheia, have some amusing moments with its culture and I really kinda of liked him with Iarenna (she had the potential to be a very good and interesting secondary character but got sidelined too quickly. I hope she comes back more). If anyone else was exploring Aletheia this probably would've been disastrous, but Audsley was the perfect choice. Not only were his chapters funny but also relevant.
However, the author rushed writing allowed some "what the hell?" moments even in his POV, more precisely at chapter 27:
Spoiler
Audsley meets Iskra, who tells him of Roddick's death, how she rescued the Agerastian army and how she intends to attack a castle the Ascendant's Grace is in. The problem? They talk carelessly about it not only in front of Iarenna but of four other maids.The maids leave shortly after and then Audsley reveals to Iskra and Iarenna he's possessed by demons, a fact that doesn't cause any kind of reaction from both women. Even if Iskra intends to use anything at her disposal, it was kinda of unbelievable she never gives the issue more thought. And Iarenna? She's raised in Aletheia, the holy city of Ascendancy. How she doesn't feel anything about Audsley being possessed by demons? Or her sister allying herself with Agerastos? Does she know her sister intends to invade Aletheia (I think Iskra tells this at some point in front of her as well later)? Or is not even troubled she had been speaking and was pretty much seduced from a demonic possessed guy?
Adding insult to the injury, later she's arrested and she tells the Virtues everything because they showed her the White Gate and then she feared for her eternal soul...
At the end, Audsley suddenly changes to a guy that apparently doesn't care about the means anymore or deaths caused. Earlier there was a chapter the demon said "the grief of killing grows lighter with time", but Audsley change was so sudden and abrupt that it felt extremely clumsy
Iskra: Hers was another good POV. The early parts were her best, setting up a heartbreaking conflict with Tiron and a really big change when she's to become Empress, with more challenges and greater scope of events. She also does some questionable things (but in a good way).
But she's also victim of the rushed writing, specially the Mertyn plotline and in the Empire.
Spoiler
In book 2 Iskra is slashed in the throat (various times) and is saved by magic. I remember she started using a scarf, but apparently nobody else noticed it. Also such a grievous wound apparently did nothing serious. Her voice seems pretty normal, she never worries or thinks about the wound and etc.So when Roddick dies in quite a similar way (throat slashing) I was wondering why she didn't at least try to get a Vhastok to heal him. Even if impossible, I found it weird she didn't even try in desperation to see if they could do something for the boy. Though Wyland was a nice subversion of the honored knight.
Mertyn's death was also a little clumsy in execution. Quite simply, we never saw enough of him to loathe the guy. This is a problem when the villain barely appears in the story for almost two books, doesn't have a POV and we don't have a POV hanging around him to see him better either.
So the conclusion of this arc isn't that thrilling (except maybe for the massacre that followed). The same thing for Roddick (who apparently was Rodrick in the second book), we feel for Iskra but they being absent so much makes it so that the events aren't explored in full potential.
And lastly, when the Emperor dies, Iskra has to take control again. There are at least three big factions (military, religious and "senate"). This could be a long plotline, but instead it's solved in about a chapter or two.
I'm not kidding. The magic users simply enter her room, Iskra says she has a sign combined to shoot them if they came through the portal and those magic users didn't even care to test it to see if it was true. They simply kneel. Then there are the military and others.
But in the next chapter everything was smoothed out and solved and Iskra has control of everything. Extremely convenient, specially considering nobody even cared to question how the Emperor died a few days after marrying Iskra or that she's a Kyferin. No obstacles whatsoever.
Her biggest challenge was simply solved too easily and quickly (offscreen, no less). She was supposed to be a clever and strong woman, but sadly we didn't see those attributes in action on a really big challenge.
Tharok: Tharok was my favorite character in the first two books. Here he's still a good character and his plans, both with and without the circlet, are pretty good. Kyrra was a great new character (possibly the only relevant new secondary character in the whole book) and pretty terrifying. His ambitions clash pretty often with his ideals and morality.
And different from Kethe and Asho, his magic comes from sources that actually are threats to him or that severely hampers him when not used (the circlet).
And also he's a victim of some rushed things, though in less degree than the others.
Spoiler
There's a moment when he wants to reorganize the kragh to a more logical and solid unit type, but thinks it'll take too much time to do such a massive change and to convince people to do it.Guess what, a few chapters later, totally offscreen, said changes were quickly and effortlessly implemented and a week or two later everything said to be almost impossible is working perfectly.
I know he now has the circlet and is Medusa kissed but how easily he got control of trolls and later wyverns was a little too easy considering he learned the ability a few weeks or 2-4 months ago at best.
Asho: His was being a very good plotline now that he didn't depend on magical brute force anymore. Until, of course, he did and in an extremely Deus Ex way.
Spoiler
Asho can't draw magic in Bythos. Then when he's ambushed (he's without his sword - more than once, for gods know what reason considering his situation) and actually... killed along with his father.As it was, that alone would've been a massive shift from the tone and alone would make the story fantastic from the sheer surprise and the way of how it happened.
Sadly, despite saying numerous times how he couldn't use magic there... he proceeds and uses it anyway. And not in a frugal way, but pretty much healing himself from a mortal wound, from death itself. Then, without even him realizing how and why, he also absorbs a demon and heals even more (while also becoming super powerful).
The sheer convenience on how he's suddenly able to use magic after stating for various chapters that he couldn't simply had me eye rolling at it all. It was unbelievable and killed his entire plotline in the book.
Kethe: Another character whose plotline became much better without the magic... until of course, it became the focus of it.
If Asho had an absurd moment of Deus Ex, Kethe is the embodiment of "special snowflake". It was quite clear since book 1 what would happen to her, that all the deadly challenges would of course be easily surpassed and she would become really powerful. But the execution is so clumsy it's even more eye-rolling than Asho's Deus Ex.
Spoiler
When the Quickening happens, a few days after Kethe is brought, it was pretty obvious who would win. Nevermind that there were more experienced people who were also for far more time close to the White Gate, it's Kethe who manifests the white flame. Nobody else, only Kethe.Nobody else can withstand a blow (or two) from a virtue, only Kethe.
In the final battle, she somehow passes her white fire to other people's blades, and for unexplainable reasons, the other Virtues don't, only Kethe.
When someone told that Theletos would be able to defeat all other six Virtues by himself, I was pretty sure Kethe would end up fighting and defeating him by herself too.
There was a curious moment when training her cohort the narrative tries to put some realism with combat tactics and positioning and does so with Kethe, a teen girl, as general of the most elite force of the Empire.
Let's remember that from her tournament fight to the demon's battle in book 2 was a thing of 2-3 weeks. From her Consecration to Tharok's invasion another 2-4 weeks.
So in the span of only 2-3 months, the moment Kethe first fights with someone for real (after a 2 days a week secret training with a blacksmith), she bests everyone in combat who was there for far more time than she (some being real and veteran soldiers and apparently drilling under the Virtue's or their commanders), mostly because she is the only one to hear the White Gate and becomes a Virtue.
Her snowflakeness was just too much. It wouldn't even matter if the magic was cemented in a rigid scientific system (same thing for Asho regarding the magic).
And another curious aspect is when she tries to "motivate" one of her soldiers by provoking him about his wife and children.
Considering she was a pampered and isolated young lady at her castle, and only one or two battles under her belt (one only with Asho), it was quite surprising to see her language in that scene, specially considering she's a virgin who never had a boyfriend but at the same time was very sure of herself when speaking of the man's wife with as much vulgarity as possible. The worst thing is how said character actually thanks Kethe later, that's how special she is.
When Theletos later starts bumping into Kethe I was pretty much expecting a love triangle to develop around Kethe-Asho-Theletos (the author apparently was previously a PNR writer), but thank God that, so far, didn't happen.
Tiron: Tiron was the POV I enjoyed the least here. It has more to do with him passing most of his story in some random corner of the world fighting and helping random and unimportant lordlings and their feuds. And they weren't interesting either. I seriously kept asking myself what was the point of this new plotline and these new unimportant secondary characters introduced.
Well, all POVs had their bunch of new secondary, unimportant and without much personality characters, but ser Tiron got the least impressive of them all.
Overall, the final battle was really good and it does end with quite a change in expectations and a really good last chapter.
I just checked the release date of the 4th book, just in case. It's more than 5 months from the third, so I hope a lot of the writing problems in here don't appear (or don't overwhelm) the next book.
But I also came across that while the 4th book was released, the author was also writing the second book of his new saga.
Here's hoping for the best, but not really expecting it...