Original idea poorly executed

This could have been a so much better story than was delivered. On the plus side Marquitz avoids the standard fantasy races for new interpretations which could have lead to an interesting story but for me it fell flat. The world building was poor. At the beginning new characters, races, cities etc. are thrown at you with alarming rapidity that it was hard to initially sort them out and that meant that their role in the story became blurred and difficult to follow. The characters were not of high quality either, the evil prince for example was archetypal evil prince, self serving, arrogant, and ignorant of everything around him and let's his own petty squabbles take on a higher importance than threats to his realm simply because of the person bringing the warning. I didn't feel that the fight scenes were well done, there was no tension and it was difficult to feel connected the way I have with other fantasy battles (for example Adrian Tchaikovsky - Shadows of the Apt).
Alongside all of this was reading by John Pruden. I found this a somewhat tedious monotone, in which it was difficult to tell descriptive passages apart from those that were supposed to full of action or suspense.
Will not be carrying on with this series and will probably steer clear of the narrator as well.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!