A review by adancewithbooks
City of Bones by Martha Wells

adventurous

3.0

 Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

City of Bones is a standalone fantasy that Martha Wells first published in 1995. In september the revised and updated version was released with Tor. Martha Wells has quite the list of books that she has written before Murderbot. And I did love her more recent Witch King. However this one didn't quite live up to what I have priorly read of her. Its not a bad book. But it was not memorable. 

Khat is hired by warders (magic users) to find a relic in one of the arcane engines that the last ancients left behind. When this expedition goes wrong, he is pulled into a much bigger plot that might take everyone a step back into history. 

When a fantasy has a rich history and ancients to be discovered about, that always excites me. And I do think that was one of the better things about this book. The pull, the mystery of that. However this book has quite a slow build and doesn't leave much room at the end for the pay off. Of the actual discovery of ancients. It was: here is one. Now its gone. That was absolutely not enough. I could have dealt with that had this been a series and if we would have had to chance to dive in deeper. But this is a standalone. 

Slow builds in fantasy is not unusual. Things have to be set up. Unfortunately I did not care enough about the characters. Khat should have been interesting for who he was and his background, but it didn't move me. I cared even less about the warder. They just were not compelling to me. Not memorable. 

Adding on to that, the plot had little surprises. It trudged on in the slow build up where my mind kept yelling; can't you see? 

Having said that, I did find the history and the magic/science surrounding the relics and the ancient engines really interesting. It is not a bad book. But because of the above mentioned, just not very memorable. 
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