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A review by keandrews95
The Fangs of War by E.J. Doble
4.0
This book has been on my list to read for a long time, and I was excited to read it. As Lemony Snicket would say, "The book you are holding in your hands doesn't have a happy ending." If you picked up this book expecting some happiness, this is not that book. It's not a knock on this book but I would describe it as reading something from the Dark Souls universe. Doble excels at writing grim, uncomfortable, grisly imagery and settings. The amount of violence in this book puts GRRM to shame. There was a lot of cool lore and many great lines and imagery that I really enjoyed. Don't get attached to anyone because they probably will die. The author does a good job of making the antagonists very unlikeable.
What knocked my rating down was I had trouble following the plot and characters. I didn't fully understand the war and thought calling the opposing nation savages so often without any of that being shown was overdone. I wanted to know more about the conflict leading up to the war and about the different countries in general. It was hard to determine what kind of world setting I was being dropped into. The City of the Sun was by far the coolest, but I wanted more about it's setting and culture. Doble has some very terrifying monsters which would fit in any Dark Souls game but I wanted more about the Mothers, the creatures, and how humans in this world react and related to them. What I struggled with the most were most of the opening chapters where characters weren't established immediately and I would read for a page or so before I knew who's chapter POV I was in. The amount of ellipse and random italics made it difficult to read at times, but that is more of a formatting issue. I wanted a bit more out of most of the characters, especially Cavara, Markus, and Savaka, who kind of got lost in the mix in the middle. I didn't fully understand their motivations (Markus' made more sense in the end) to really connect with them.
Overall this book is very atmospheric and the epitome of grimdark, no doubt about that.
I give this 3.5/4 out of 5
What knocked my rating down was I had trouble following the plot and characters. I didn't fully understand the war and thought calling the opposing nation savages so often without any of that being shown was overdone. I wanted to know more about the conflict leading up to the war and about the different countries in general. It was hard to determine what kind of world setting I was being dropped into. The City of the Sun was by far the coolest, but I wanted more about it's setting and culture. Doble has some very terrifying monsters which would fit in any Dark Souls game but I wanted more about the Mothers, the creatures, and how humans in this world react and related to them. What I struggled with the most were most of the opening chapters where characters weren't established immediately and I would read for a page or so before I knew who's chapter POV I was in. The amount of ellipse and random italics made it difficult to read at times, but that is more of a formatting issue. I wanted a bit more out of most of the characters, especially Cavara, Markus, and Savaka, who kind of got lost in the mix in the middle. I didn't fully understand their motivations (Markus' made more sense in the end) to really connect with them.
Overall this book is very atmospheric and the epitome of grimdark, no doubt about that.
I give this 3.5/4 out of 5