A fantasy novel by a new author and the last of this year’s Hugo nominees for me. The action happens refreshingly in a generic middle age Middle East instead of a generic middle age Europe. That’s about all which is unusual in this book. The plot and especially the characters are very generic and clichéd. There is an older ghoul hunter who feels too old for this shit, a young, overzealous holy warrior and an attractive very badly underused, very badly characterized, shapeshifting young girl who serves as a love interest for the youngster. Something very evil and powerful is rising, and it is up to our heroes to save the city, country and the world. The novel feels very generic in spite of the location. There are problems with the pacing, the writing feels pretty clumsy and especially the battle scenes feel transcripts of a role playing adventure. At times, it feels like the author threw dice and consulted random encounter tables, so random some encounters felt. The magic used in the book also felt to be very "D&D" stylishs with fireballs, spells glowing in the air and so on. I also would imagine that if magic really were so powerfull and common, the society and most functions of such world would be profoundly changed. That coudn't be seen in this book. I don’t see why this book was nominated and how it has so many so positive reviews in Amazon and Librarything. Will be on the last place in my voting.
288pp.
No comments:
Post a Comment