A review by leann_bolesch
Lord of the Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Had I not read something else by Neumeier that left an impression on me, I would have DNF’d in chapter two, if not chapter one. While the story does get better after that, it doesn’t get good enough to be worth the initial hurdle, and a lot of the writing issues persist such that it becomes apparent that it wasn’t just a clumsy two first chapters, but a clumsy book overall. 

The books problems are many and some of them create a mismatch in elements through, I suspect, shortcomings of writing rather than deliberate choices in where to allocate focus. 

First and most critically: the plot happens because it is the plot the author outlined, rather than because it is an organic choice the characters would make. Characters who are portrayed as if they are sensible leaders repeatedly put their pride above resolving conflicts or forming alliances, and both main characters and some of the supporting cast are regularly compelled by their own magic to act against their established motives in order to exacerbate conflicts or force alliances where the conflict should get in the way of them. The griffins also choose regularly to omit details in what initially seemed like a manipulative behavior, but becomes increasingly apparent is just their habit—and also an easy way for the author to increase conflict via miscommunication. 

On top of this, the magic system is a mess. I don’t even know what all magic entails. Magic is sorted into fire or earth with no proper clarification on what that entails. The only magic elaborated on are the abilities that characters reveal themselves capable of as the need arises. Kes is granted instant grasp of how to heal in chapter one, spontaneously teleport without knowing she knew how to do that when the plot needs her to go to a different location without escort, and then conveniently turns out to be able to

sense the location and status of every griffin and heal them remotely

once the story needs an easy victory. (This story is a very big fan of teleporting characters to the next plot point, which would feel less egregious if the characters at least knew that’s where they were headed half the time.) There does not seem to be any limit on how powerful magic can be or how much of it a person can wield. The only real restrictions, on an elemental level, is that fire can’t manipulate earth and vice versa, and each is weaker on the other’s terrain. 

Also teleporting might be a fire specific thing, although how that relates to fire is beyond me. It seems you could argue that, say, stepping from one bit of earth to another, regardless the distance, could be an earth thing. Although I don’t recall it being said that earth mages can’t teleport—it’s just that only fire mages are shown to do so. 

Adding to the weirdness is that mage abilities seem to mostly be based on element, but healing is randomly an ability of human mages regardless of element instead. What magic is or is not racial is not explored in any more depth than restricting healing access from griffins in order to justify them recruiting Kes 

This poor world building is particularly astonishing because Neumeier is very comfortable info-dumping about the setting. I know the name of the dead former king of a kingdom that only ever exists in the background and never really factors into the plot. The amount of useless geopolitics provided was staggering iwhen considered against all the plot-critical magic that was left vague. 

All of this, combined with the characters taking a consistently serious tone for the war plot, creates a sense that the story should be a heavy epic fantasy following many factions and perspectives, in which the focus is more on the world and its history and, perhaps, what that world can reveal about our own. The shallowness of the world building details that matter to understanding the relative power of the difference factions, the adherence to two POVs of young characters, and the contrivances driving most of the plot instead give it the feel that this the story should be more about the growth of the characters with the plot being but a vehicle for their growth. It ultimately delivers neither experinces/ 

This is all without addressing the nightmare that is the first two chapters. 

The first chapter, first off, feels like it should be three. I thought it was overly long to accommodate the story alternating POVs every chapter, but we stop alternating more than halfway through the book, so I don’t actually know what the author’s excuse was. The first two thirds do perfectly okay job of setting up a Hero’s Journey, and we are then, without a scene break, teleport ed into a desert, and the story nose dives. 

The last third is when we learn Kes is a mage, Kes learns to perfectly and masterfully heal so instantly that it raises the question of why mages even need training or spend time as apprentices in this world, and we also get an insane list of names, almost all of which you do need to commit to memory (I think. I wouldn’t know if one of them never came up again. I didn’t memorize any and just rolled with it when the book acted like I should already know a given griffin when they appeared in all subsequent chapters.) The griffin mage says a lot of poetic things that set the tone for how much the magic isn’t going to be laid out clearly. Everyone gives their full name as Kes uses these names to heal them (this story does not otherwise give any power to names, and they can be changed flippantly) and we get to see the first instance of pride making the entire cast stupid as one griffin tries to kill Kes because it’s mad that it needed help from a human. This threat is resolved immediately and adds no stakes. It’s just there to make the process of walking around and repeating absurd names seem more varied. 

I could rant at length about how much I hate the names, but I’m going to instead list the ones I found skimming back through chapter 1 again, because you really need to see them for yourself. 

Anasakuse Sipiike Kairaithin, Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike, Raihaisike Saipakale, Kiibaile Esterire Airaikeliu, Eskainiane Escaile Sehaiku. 

(I don’t know why Raihaisike Saipakale gets only two names, particularly when the story explains the custom of giving griffins three-part names. I just noticed that while gathering those names and now it bothers me. Also, you’re supposed to memorize multiple name parts because which part gets used when is based on status and familiarity of the speaker.) 

By the time this nonsense wraps up and we finally move on to chapter two, I was thoroughly sick of names to the point that I had no patience for having anyone else introduced to me. So we of course are introduced to Bertaud, our other POV character, his king, and his pages and pages of info-dumping thoughts on the geopolitical situation in the kingdom, complete with a history of his lands and the names and occasionally nicknames of important nobles (past and present) from neighboring kingdoms. My brain was so stuffed with names and places that I forgot the name of the place the characters were currently at. This was not helped by the fact that, amidst all the geopolitical info dumping, there was also considerable ink spent talking about how the locals liked to celebrate both winter and spring in ways that sounded perfectly pleasant but told me nothing about any actual holidays or customs for the setting. (Or if they did, I had to delete those details from my brain to make room for the name of some hundred year old foreign king.) 

Oh. Also sometimes the author just phrases a sentence oddly. Like, they just forgot a word levels of oddly. A couple times towards the end, I felt like there was meant to be a paragraph break but the author didn’t include it. There were many instances where a sentence made its point and then added ten extra words for no good reason. I’m not usually someone who notices the prose. I either don’t gel with the narrator’s voice or I don’t notice it. I noticed it here. I noticed it despite not hating the voice. This book felt like it needed more editing. More big picture edits. More line edits. More time in the oven overall.

Like, even the scenes that do reveal or hint at things feel so mishandled. Jos is mentioned in a single line to often visit an inn, but the scene where we visit the inn is one where Jos stays behind. That Jos frequents that inn is actually an important plot detail, but it's one line against an entire scene where he's absent. I had to flip back to the chapter where he skipped out on the trip to find that line, because it shocked me to hear that him going to the inn mattered when the thing I more distinctly remembered was him not going.

At some point, I started enjoying this book more for the sake of finding problems than actual investment in the characters, and was contemplating if I’m better off just finding something truly enjoyable when I reached the end, or if I should carry on to book two. (The library gave me the whole trilogy at once.) Book one ends in a way that makes it feel like a standalone, and book two appears to be a totally different cast and conflict. So I’m gonna say I got the whole story and not touch anything else in this half-baked world.