Judging by other reviews of this book, I think a lot of the things that people criticised most are the things that I really appreciated about it4.5*/5
Judging by other reviews of this book, I think a lot of the things that people criticised most are the things that I really appreciated about it. The style, written as a compiled historical treatise by an in-world Maester, added a really interesting element to the storytelling that was really submersive. It did, however, bring about my only slight criticism, and why I would mark it down half a star.
The telling of the history of the Targaryens, in world, is brought to us by Archmaester Galdayn, who draws on other in-world sources to peice together events over the course of about 140 years. Ultimately, this unreliable narration leaves us with a lot of 'maybe this happened, and maybe it didn't,' which I didn't always mind as it left some events open to interpretation, but at times it felt like a cop-out from the real world author, who would often ramp up really interesting elements of the story, only to leave it open ended with 'and what happens next was never recorded,' or '...but that's a story for another time.' I know real history books often suffer the same issues, which this was obviously attempting to emulate, but ultimately it is still fiction, and some of those loose threads left me a little blue-balled as a reader.
So, that one gripe aside, overall I was really pleased with this one. It's hefty, coming in at over 700 pages, but I figure that anyone who comes to this would most likely have already tackled the rest of ASOIAF, so that shouldn't be too offputting. The illistrations inside are beautiful, and really compliment the vivid characterisations from Martin, and as a world-builder, the book excellently adds to the already established lore, fleshing out families, characters and places within the world that are sometimes alluded to in the main book series, but that we otherwise know little about.
If you're a fan of the main book series, and especially if you like world-building and histories, then there's a lot of great stuff to be found in this book, which richly expands the overall story and provides the framwork for the current HOTD television series. A definite recommend for ASOIAF fans....more
I took a punt on this one after seeing the author's videos on TikTok promoting it. It's not my usual fare (Zombie Apocalypse), butSpoiler Free Review.
I took a punt on this one after seeing the author's videos on TikTok promoting it. It's not my usual fare (Zombie Apocalypse), but at a little over 100 pages I knew it would be a quick easy read so I decided to give it a go. What I found was an intricately woven tale, smartly written, with believable characters that I found myself rooting for. The author has a lovely, descriptive way with words that vividly builds the world she's created, making it seem real and lived in, and presents it's characters as realistic, fallible, intriguing, yet most importantly, likeable. I was completely immersed throughout, and as the tension mounted I found myself completely swept up in the story right through to its conclusion. A definite recommend, especially for fans of the genre....more
I bought this book on a whim two weeks ago for no other reason than it was one of the few books available while I waited fo2.5* rounded up for review.
I bought this book on a whim two weeks ago for no other reason than it was one of the few books available while I waited for a flight and I thought it would make for some easy reading while I spent six hours in the air.
What. A. Slog.
And it's a shame, because there's a really good story in here just dying to get out, which would make it a really entertaining mystery. Ultimately, though, it's weighted down by some ridiculously slow pacing, swathes of cringeworthy dialogue and the sense that some of the characters are there to serve no other purpose than to espouse the authors personal social commentary. And I mean, that's what authors do. That's not the problem. It was just so obvious and hamfisted that the subtlety that allows the reader to think and question those things was all but gone, so the themes came off as smug rather than thought provoking.
Despite all of that, my biggest issue was the pacing. The first two thirds of the book dragged, and there were many times where I was just re-reading elements of the story being repeated, as though the author didn't trust us to remember details, or perhaps she just wanted the 'clues' to be so obviously clues that she felt the needs to highlight them over and over. When I read a mystery I love the subtle callbacks to the innocuous, the things that seemed perfectly ordinary that ended up being massively significant, but with this I felt like I was going into the ending with a checklist of all the things that were important because they'd been repeated so often to ensure we didn't miss them, and it spoiled the 'detective' element for me.
It's not all bad though, and as I said above, there's good to be had here. The premise itself is neat, and throwing the three leads together makes for an interesting formula. I didn't like all of the leads, which made some sections of the book harder to get through than others, but their characters for the most part were believable and well written, fleshed out people. Posy felt a bit too on the nose for my liking, and wasn't so much a stereotype of the fallen Hollywood child star, but more a copy and paste of several well known names from the last decade or so, and she was ridiculously grating, but I found Rosalind and Caro enjoyable enough.
I also thought the author did a great job with the setting. Though I found some of the writing a little overly flowery, she did an excellent job of bringing Aldemere to life, with vivid descriptions that really helped to create the scenes and characters in your minds eye.
Despite a slow, sluggish start (and middle) the last quarter of the book really picks up, and if we could have had that pace, snappy dialogue and intrigue through the rest of the book I could have easily made this a 4* review. It's just a shame that that burst of energy came at the end of the book, when mine had worn out....more
I wanted to love this, but for such a short book, getting to the end was an absolute slog.
I liked the premise, and though formulaic, there was potentiI wanted to love this, but for such a short book, getting to the end was an absolute slog.
I liked the premise, and though formulaic, there was potential there for a terrifying tale to be told, but I found that the author tended to tell, rather than show, and relied upon repeated descriptions of how terrifying everything was, rather than writing anything that actually gets under your skin. There were at least four instances of the author building up the tension, only to then crash the pacing by telling us over multiple paragraphs how scared the protagonist was, instead of giving us the vivid decriptions that would have had has trembling along with him. We aren't automatically going to feel how he feels just because we are being repeatedly told he feels a certain way. It just doesn't work like that, and from a horror story, you need more.
I also had an issue with the editing. I can't be sure if it was a stylistic choice or just poor editing (and I tend to think it was the latter), but there were huge swathes of text that were nearly unreadable. Lines didn't flow well, there was odd sentence structures, and there were quite a few errors with misspellings and missing words. My biggest issue, though, was the with the prose. Masses of flowery text describing details that you hoped would pay off later, only for them to never be relevant again was a repeated problem. As was the tend to reiterate the same descriptions over and over. Once you've spent a page describing the fog, we get it. To go into such detail, then, every other time you mention the fog, becomes a bit of a hammered point. For a short book of only 200 pages, it started to feel a lot like the author was padding to hit a word count.
I also really struggled with the sentence structure. There were times where I was begging for a period or a comma and on many occassions I had to re-read passages several times and then mentally add my own in order for it to make sense. There was one sentence towards the beginning of the book that spanned eleven lines. Eleven! With only two commas to break it up. By the time I got to the end of it I felt like I couldn't breathe. There were numerous examples of this, and having to keep re-reading sections really pulled me out of the story.
I didn't care enough about the protagonist to really root for him, but due to the structure of the story and the way it is told, a lot of the stakes were removed because we know he ultimately comes to no harm. Told in a different way, so that his fate was more ambiguous, I think it could have changed ow I viewed the character and also added a further layer or intensity to the story, that was otherwise lacking.
For the most part it's an easy read. At 200 pages I was able to finish it within a couple of hours, but I will admit I spent the first 120 pages waiting for it to really get started, as it felt like the book was about 70% setup for the story. There are two plot twists within the story, and both could be seen a mile off, and this was once again down to the writing. It felt like the author didn't trust the reader to work things out for themselves along the way, so the hints were as subtle as bricks. One of the twists is definitely more satisfying than the other, but unfortunately it's the one to end the book, and the author literally stops dead as soon as it happens, so we see no pay off for it or fall out for the characters. The twist happens and then the MC basically says 'I don't want to talk about this anymore' (paraphrasing) and the book ends. It's all just so unsatisfying.
If you're looking for a quick, fairly easy read, then you won't struggle with this, but if you want more of a 'boo' for your buck, a well developed plot and engaging characters, I think you'll likely be disappointed....more
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