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A review by not_a_wally
Wit'ch Gate by James Clemens
5.0
This is definitely my favorite of the books. So far. I have one left. Which is ominous considering how this one ends. A complaint about the writing (which goes for all the books in this series but, somehow, stands out more in this one): so much exposition! I mean, jesus. It's unreal how many info dumps there are in this series. It's one of my favorite series, but this shit makes me angry. A few exposition scenes are expected in any novel, especially ones in series that deal with multiple groups of characters in separate situations. But, and I am not kidding, there are at least 2-3 paragraphs of exposition/info dumping at the start of every chapter and chapter break. Yes. That's right. There are multiple paragraphs of exposition after almost every chapter break (Shitty Definition: when there's a shift in perspective [or something of that sort] within a chapter, usually indicated by a double space between blocks of text). So, if you took everything but the exposition out of this series, you would have enough text and enough information to basically understand the entire 5 book series. This, to me, is a problem. Show don't tell.
Moving on. Writing complaints aside, this book is awesome! Lots of action, lots of feels, lots of stress, (lots of stress), and lots of Tol'chuck being sad (less awesome). I hope he's happier in the next one. Joach's story makes me angry because it's so stressful, but not angry in a bad way. He deserves everything and is a precious cinnamon roll. Not being able to remember what happens next for him is stressful. (This series is really stressful, I don't know if I've mentioned)... Ah, oh, yes. The one thing I genuinely don't like about this one (apart from the horrendous overuse of info dumping) is Meepmorp. Gleepglop. Sneepsneep. Whatever the fuck the obvious Golem rip-off's name was! Shit, it was fucking stupid anyway. You can't do that. You can't take a character from a widely beloved classic fantasy, dumb him down, and stick him in your world like it isn't basically plagiarism. Not to mention that the land in which you introduced him was basically Mordor, volcanoes and all. There is being inspired by something and straight up ripping it off. And in this case, it was less inspired and more what were you thinking. Maybe I'm alone on this, but that's how I feel, so... end of review.
Moving on. Writing complaints aside, this book is awesome! Lots of action, lots of feels, lots of stress, (lots of stress), and lots of Tol'chuck being sad (less awesome). I hope he's happier in the next one. Joach's story makes me angry because it's so stressful, but not angry in a bad way. He deserves everything and is a precious cinnamon roll. Not being able to remember what happens next for him is stressful. (This series is really stressful, I don't know if I've mentioned)... Ah, oh, yes. The one thing I genuinely don't like about this one (apart from the horrendous overuse of info dumping) is Meepmorp. Gleepglop. Sneepsneep. Whatever the fuck the obvious Golem rip-off's name was! Shit, it was fucking stupid anyway. You can't do that. You can't take a character from a widely beloved classic fantasy, dumb him down, and stick him in your world like it isn't basically plagiarism. Not to mention that the land in which you introduced him was basically Mordor, volcanoes and all. There is being inspired by something and straight up ripping it off. And in this case, it was less inspired and more what were you thinking. Maybe I'm alone on this, but that's how I feel, so... end of review.