Scan barcode
A review by tsunni
The Ember Blade by Chris Wooding
Did not finish book. Stopped at 51%.
I think the pacing is a huge problem. From the very early start, the endgame for the main characters and the Ember Blade was already telegraphed, but the plot spends an eternity getting to the standard traditional fantasy beats. When it does deviate from the expected and seems to be doing something new, it ultimately never provides anything interesting in those tangents; the plot meanders but with no real impact to to the main plot or to characterization.
The second problem was that the main viewpoint characters were mostly uninteresting even with all the excessive time spent on fleshing them out. The characters that I wanted to know more about -- like Fen and Vika -- are relegated to supporting roles in service of the main cast and to move the plot along. The ones I didn't need to know more about get a lot of dedicated time that doesn't change enough.
I kept with it up to 51% because there's a lot to like here; in particular the soft magic, the conflicting religious systems, the Ossians and other conquered people struggling to survive the systematic erasure of their culture by the Krodans. But the writing keeps piquing my interesting and disappointing me with where it goes. Struggled hard with continuing, but ultimately I decided to move on.
The second problem was that the main viewpoint characters were mostly uninteresting even with all the excessive time spent on fleshing them out. The characters that I wanted to know more about -- like Fen and Vika -- are relegated to supporting roles in service of the main cast and to move the plot along. The ones I didn't need to know more about get a lot of dedicated time that doesn't change enough.
I kept with it up to 51% because there's a lot to like here; in particular the soft magic, the conflicting religious systems, the Ossians and other conquered people struggling to survive the systematic erasure of their culture by the Krodans. But the writing keeps piquing my interesting and disappointing me with where it goes. Struggled hard with continuing, but ultimately I decided to move on.