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A review by mhedgescsus
The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft
2.0
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One of the worst fantasy books I've ever read
I really hate to give such a bad rating here because I felt like the first book showed so much promise, and I truly enjoy the protagonist. Senlin feels like a real person that you can connect with and his initial quest to save his wife felt compelling and worth investing in. The first book showed a fun, inventive episodic story about a man slowly moving up a tower that had extremely unique floors.
The problem for me is that he's the only character I like. The rest of the characters feel so weak and uninteresting, and it's extremely frustrating that the second and third book here are making them more and more of the focus. The story is also turning into a frustrating "mystery", and I only find mystery stories interesting when the story has strong characters to move the story along - which I do not feel is the case here.
This book essentially abandons a major character that we as the reader have been heavily invested in. It then requires that the reader re-invest into different characters that would struggle to hold up a chapter, let alone a book. It also sells us in the first book of this fun concept of a constantly changing landscape of different environments, and then makes us read for 500+ pages about the same location.
I'm disappointed that I have not gotten the enjoyment out of this that so many others have, and sadly I think I am going to give up on this series. I have a typically hard policy of not giving up on a series when I am more than halfway, but this one is the exception for me. I just can't.
One of the worst fantasy books I've ever read
I really hate to give such a bad rating here because I felt like the first book showed so much promise, and I truly enjoy the protagonist. Senlin feels like a real person that you can connect with and his initial quest to save his wife felt compelling and worth investing in. The first book showed a fun, inventive episodic story about a man slowly moving up a tower that had extremely unique floors.
The problem for me is that he's the only character I like. The rest of the characters feel so weak and uninteresting, and it's extremely frustrating that the second and third book here are making them more and more of the focus. The story is also turning into a frustrating "mystery", and I only find mystery stories interesting when the story has strong characters to move the story along - which I do not feel is the case here.
This book essentially abandons a major character that we as the reader have been heavily invested in. It then requires that the reader re-invest into different characters that would struggle to hold up a chapter, let alone a book. It also sells us in the first book of this fun concept of a constantly changing landscape of different environments, and then makes us read for 500+ pages about the same location.
I'm disappointed that I have not gotten the enjoyment out of this that so many others have, and sadly I think I am going to give up on this series. I have a typically hard policy of not giving up on a series when I am more than halfway, but this one is the exception for me. I just can't.