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mrose21's review
I'm not even 2% in and I'm already out.
I doubt I'll come back to this book, I doubt I'll even think about it again.
I'm sure since there are so many more 5 star reviews than one or two that I'm in the minority regarding this - and this is OK honestly! This book is clearly not for me, even though I love paranormal fantasy stuff its just too boring in the way it is written.
I didn't leap in and think yes I want to read this. I started reading this and figured out its a YA (I think this is YA, maybe I'm wrong there) Game of thrones sort of book and I just cannot be bothered just yet to read that book or this one. Maybe one day I'll go back to it but for now I cannot be bothered.
I doubt I'll come back to this book, I doubt I'll even think about it again.
I'm sure since there are so many more 5 star reviews than one or two that I'm in the minority regarding this - and this is OK honestly! This book is clearly not for me, even though I love paranormal fantasy stuff its just too boring in the way it is written.
I didn't leap in and think yes I want to read this. I started reading this and figured out its a YA (I think this is YA, maybe I'm wrong there) Game of thrones sort of book and I just cannot be bothered just yet to read that book or this one. Maybe one day I'll go back to it but for now I cannot be bothered.
tykewriter's review
5.0
Events loom large on the horizon, but the people depicted in M Edward McNally's The Sable City, have no idea of the momentous events that are set to sweep them along, as you might expect in the first book of a series. No spoilers, either within the book, or indeed this review, but suffice to say the story is as deep and as broad as you might expect of an epic fantasy.
McNally has set high standards in this, the first book of the Norothian Cycle. The story-telling is neatly paced, with a good balance bewteen action and narration and the back story needed to give the world of Noroth both depth and breadth. Equally, there's no mono-dimensional sketching to his characters, but fully-rounded human beings, whether they are bit players or the stars of the show. The clarity of writing is spot on, both precise and concise, without ever losing any sense of substance and style. The editing and formating is nearly perfect -- a high standard indeed for other indie authors to emulate.
The Sable City features a long list of characters, far too many to deal with here, but the reader never loses track of them in the lenghty narrative (it's 180, 000 words long). It helps that McNally has portrayed them so well in his writing; the quirks of personality, the interplay between them -- whether in anger or affection -- ensures that 'names and faces' don't become a blur.
The heart of the story is Matilda (Tilda) Lanai, a young guilder sent on a mission with the dwarf Captain Block to find the exiled head of House Deskata. The island of Miilark, a polynesian-derived culture, I am guessing modelled on Hawaii, is the home of both Tilda and the Deskata. Some 200 years before, shipwrecked mariners profoundly changed the island's culture and outlook; by the time of The Sable City, Miilark has become a great trading and sea-faring nation, and its trading houses (such as House Deskata) have gained a fearsome reputation in commerce and trade, controlling as they do, the main trade routes to all four continents on McNally's world.
Lanai's and Block's search for Deskata will take them deep into the troubled continent of Noroth, blighted by war between Ayzantium and Daul, but their journey will ultimately take them into the cursed city of Vod'Adia -- the Sable City of the title. Cut off from the world by an ancient curse, the city only opens for a month every century, and then it draws adventurers and wealth seekers to try their luck within its haunted streets, but as Lanai and her party will discover, the Sable City hosts darker secrets and deadlier dangers than anyone might have guessed.
This is a world on the verge of great change, and not just in the portents of the epic story to come, but in terms of its own history. For many, the words 'epic fantasy' no doubt conjure up medieval visions of knights and castles, of chain-mail clad soldiers with swords and bows, spiced up with goblins and dragons, sorcery and the supernatural, and these certainly exist in McNally's story. What is refreshing, however, is the presence of gunpowder and the fiery difference it has made to this world. Aside from the tall ships and global trade that Lanai's people have made almost their own, the primitive firearms, the cannons, and the changes they bring to fortification and tactics, dramatically indicate a world that is poised between the medieval and the modern.
McNally's The Sable City is an engaging read, filled with breathtaking spectacle, breathless battles, and endearing people, it all combines to create a novel that is up there with the masters of the print-era genre. It'll make you chuckle, it'll make you rage, it will make you duck behind the cushions, and it will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat as you follow the adventures of Lanai and her friends.
All in all, McNally has set authors a tough act to follow. And since there is more to come, that includes himself, so we'll see if he can raise his game and keep the thrills and spills coming in the second part of the series.
McNally has set high standards in this, the first book of the Norothian Cycle. The story-telling is neatly paced, with a good balance bewteen action and narration and the back story needed to give the world of Noroth both depth and breadth. Equally, there's no mono-dimensional sketching to his characters, but fully-rounded human beings, whether they are bit players or the stars of the show. The clarity of writing is spot on, both precise and concise, without ever losing any sense of substance and style. The editing and formating is nearly perfect -- a high standard indeed for other indie authors to emulate.
The Sable City features a long list of characters, far too many to deal with here, but the reader never loses track of them in the lenghty narrative (it's 180, 000 words long). It helps that McNally has portrayed them so well in his writing; the quirks of personality, the interplay between them -- whether in anger or affection -- ensures that 'names and faces' don't become a blur.
The heart of the story is Matilda (Tilda) Lanai, a young guilder sent on a mission with the dwarf Captain Block to find the exiled head of House Deskata. The island of Miilark, a polynesian-derived culture, I am guessing modelled on Hawaii, is the home of both Tilda and the Deskata. Some 200 years before, shipwrecked mariners profoundly changed the island's culture and outlook; by the time of The Sable City, Miilark has become a great trading and sea-faring nation, and its trading houses (such as House Deskata) have gained a fearsome reputation in commerce and trade, controlling as they do, the main trade routes to all four continents on McNally's world.
Lanai's and Block's search for Deskata will take them deep into the troubled continent of Noroth, blighted by war between Ayzantium and Daul, but their journey will ultimately take them into the cursed city of Vod'Adia -- the Sable City of the title. Cut off from the world by an ancient curse, the city only opens for a month every century, and then it draws adventurers and wealth seekers to try their luck within its haunted streets, but as Lanai and her party will discover, the Sable City hosts darker secrets and deadlier dangers than anyone might have guessed.
This is a world on the verge of great change, and not just in the portents of the epic story to come, but in terms of its own history. For many, the words 'epic fantasy' no doubt conjure up medieval visions of knights and castles, of chain-mail clad soldiers with swords and bows, spiced up with goblins and dragons, sorcery and the supernatural, and these certainly exist in McNally's story. What is refreshing, however, is the presence of gunpowder and the fiery difference it has made to this world. Aside from the tall ships and global trade that Lanai's people have made almost their own, the primitive firearms, the cannons, and the changes they bring to fortification and tactics, dramatically indicate a world that is poised between the medieval and the modern.
McNally's The Sable City is an engaging read, filled with breathtaking spectacle, breathless battles, and endearing people, it all combines to create a novel that is up there with the masters of the print-era genre. It'll make you chuckle, it'll make you rage, it will make you duck behind the cushions, and it will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat as you follow the adventures of Lanai and her friends.
All in all, McNally has set authors a tough act to follow. And since there is more to come, that includes himself, so we'll see if he can raise his game and keep the thrills and spills coming in the second part of the series.
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