Anthony Ryan (1) (1970–)

I think this book was solid, but the comparisons to Name of the Wind are a bit farfetched. This book rushes a lot. It doesn't feel as much like an enjoyable story as it does a lesson (though it's not clear in what), and this makes it less enjoyable to relax and lose oneself in. The story itself was good, though not perfect, and the characters were a bit less developed than I would have expected. Most of all, I found the format to be a bit awkward. The present day vs. long historical sections were not as well done as in the Name of the Wind, and often ruined bits of the story by telling what would happen in the next historical part (which I found extremely frustrating). Overall, worth reading for fans of the genre, but not a book I'd recommend to anyone else.… (mais)

Well, this was horrible!

The author is good with words but he lacks any idea of how to write a decent story and has little clue of human behaviour.

The main character sounds witty but.. he's anything but.

Characters in general are downright dumb, doing things for no reason. Some are pictured as being good while bringing murder, rape, pillage and destruction everywhere they go.

Here are two examples:

(The following paragraphs contain SPOILERS)

In the first book, at some point this lady, the commander of the main army group is wounded and she's dying. The main character decides to save her life by employing the pagan rituals of a witch. When she wakes up she thinks she was saved by angels. She then proceeds in rallying all the local peasants against the greedy royals and the church claming divine wisdom. The royals and the church try to assassinate her of course but again she is saved by the main character with help from her army and the peasants. She, him and their army group then proceed to a meeting with the royals and the church where she swears fealty to them. Wait, what!? But they just tried to kill her! The peasants are also very happy about the situation even though just a short while ago they were screaming their guts out against the royals and the church for bleeing them dry. Again, what, why!?

They are then ordered to proceed and fight a war against a neighboring province, this being a way in which the royals and church hope to get rid of them. The province in question is one of the few places in the realm where the nobles, the church and the peasants live in relative harmony. Wow! This sure sounds like a bad place which needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. So they go there and exterminate pretty much everyone. All this time the lady commander keeps saying that this has to be done so as to prevent the demons from coming to this realm. All her subjects, including the main character believe what she says because real-wide slaughter sure sounds like something that would prevent the apocalypse. While facilitating this conquest the main character keeps pretending that he is a good person. He later questions himself about how he could do all this. I questioned myself too and it turned out that everything that he did, he did because he wanted to fuck his commander.

Sadly this is the level of story telling here, in the first book and beyond.… (mais)

I'm really not sure why people where comparing this to Sanderson or Rothfuss. Did no one read Mark Lawrence's The Broken Empire? In any case, I started off thinking this was boy lit--all testosterone and swordly prowess, but it turned out to be a nuanced look at loyalty, religion, honor, love and magic.

Being a '1st' book, there were times when the prose could have been smoother or a change of subject came too abruptly, but I have no doubt that this trilogy (series?) will just get better.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, including parts of it on audio (I switch back and forth between the two depending on circumstance). The narrator's voice was delicious. My only complaint is that on occasion I missed that the character was expressing an inner thought, but on the whole he did a superb job.

… (mais)